rcp or ftp script ??

[someone_4]

I have a file on one box and i want to write a script that will put it in several boxes.
what would be best? to rcp or ftp?
If i rcp how do I rcpt the file for this box to the others? The same with ftp. what do you recommend and why .
thanks..
Richard

[someone_4]

This: with typos
If i rcp how do I rcpt the file for this box to the others? The same with ftp.
should be : without typos
If I rcp how do I rcp the file form this box to the others? The same with ftp.

Thanks

[A. Clay Stephenson]

As long as your within the UNIX world and not having to send the file to those pesky PC's I would use rcp simply because it is much easier to script and you can also specify permissions
wvia -p argument.

My 2 cents, Clay

[A. Clay Stephenson · Accepted solution]

Ok Richard, now that I see your full question:

Something like this:
FILES="/tmp/file1 /home/richard/file2"
REMOTES="huey louie dewey"
for FILE in ${FILES}
do
for REMOTE in ${REMOTES}
do
rcp -p ${FILE} ${REMOTE}:${FILE}
done
done

That will do it. You will need to set up host.equiv's and .rhosts but that's it.

Clay

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi Richard:

'rcp' has an advantage over 'ftp' that can be very useful, namely the timestamps and permissions of files can be maintained by using the '-p' option. With 'ftp' this only occurs if an existing file of the same name exists (empty or not).

'rcp' is a remote 'cp' and so has the recursive copy features which can be harder to handle in scripted ftp sessions.

However, 'ftp' is genearally implemented on all operating systems. 'rcp' is a unix-to-unix tool.

Therefore, the choice is really yours, depending upon the task, its complexity, and the availability of 'rcp' on the sending and receiving ends.

...JRF...

[Thierry Poels_1]

Hi Richard,
one more option is rdist.
Have a look in the man pages, it's quite similar to rcp.
good luck,
Thierry.

[someone_4]

Thanks everyone .. one quick question A.Clay
the script you gave me worked fine.
But if I want to put one file form one dir to a differnt dir in the other box how would i write that?

[A. Clay Stephenson]

Hi Richard:
It's easy. The answer is just like you would with plain old cp.

e.g. rcp -p /tmp/file1 remote_host:/tmp2/file1
or
rcp -p /tmp/file1 remote_host:/tmp2/file2

BTW you can reverse the sense of the arguments
and copy from the remote host, if you wish.

e.g. rcp -p remote_host:/tmp2/file1 /tmp/file1

Finally if you want to specify full paths on the source like my example and different destination directories then you should use 'basename' and 'dirname'. Man basename and dirname for details.

Clay