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Copy a folder tree through ssh using compression (no temporary files)

Terminal - Copy a folder tree through ssh using compression (no temporary files)
ssh <host> 'tar -cz /<folder>/<subfolder>' | tar -xvz
2009-11-10 20:06:47
User: polaco
Functions: ssh tar
9
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Copy a folder tree through ssh using compression (no temporary files)

This command will copy a folder tree (keeping the parent folders) through ssh. It will:

- compress the data

- stream the compressed data through ssh

- decompress the data on the local folder

This command will take no additional space on the host machine (no need to create compressed tar files, transfer it and then delete it on the host).

There is some situations (like mirroring a remote machine) where you simply cant wait for a huge time taking scp command or cant compress the data to a tarball on the host because of file system space limitation, so this command can do the job quite well.

This command performs very well mainly when a lot of data is involved in the process. If you copying a low amount of data, use scp instead (easier to type)

Show sample output | Add to favourites | Report as malicious

Alternatives

There are 5 alternatives - vote for the best!

Terminal - Alternatives

Know a better way?

If you can do better, submit your command here.

What others think

In case you want to use fewer CPU cycles, you could just drop the gzip compression of tar (which is sometimes the bottleneck depending on the data), or use a different cipher in ssh:

ssh <host> -C blowfish-cbc 'tar -cz /<folder>/<subfolder>' | tar -xvz

to profile the different ssh ciphers on your machine, run this command:

openssl speed aes rc4 blowfish

At least on debian/ubuntu, the openssl command comes with the 'openssl' package, which is probably available by default on most systems.

Comment by bwoodacre 183 weeks and 3 days ago

Nice comment, thx for the additions

Comment by polaco 183 weeks and 3 days ago

You can let ssh do the compression/decompression:

ssh -C HOST 'tar -c PATH' | tar -xv

The advantage is that you can control the compression level, like:

ssh -C -o CompressionLevel=9 HOST 'tar -c PATH' | tar -xv
Comment by rbossy 183 weeks and 2 days ago

Did some testes with the 3 versions of the commands (copying large log files)

time scp hula2:/export/logs/account-collector/server.log.2009-11-* .

server.log.2009-11-01 100% 43MB 8.5MB/s 00:05

server.log.2009-11-02 100% 44MB 10.9MB/s 00:04

server.log.2009-11-03 100% 21MB 10.5MB/s 00:02

server.log.2009-11-04 100% 2302KB 2.3MB/s 00:00

server.log.2009-11-05 100% 785MB 9.7MB/s 01:21

server.log.2009-11-06 100% 50MB 8.3MB/s 00:06

server.log.2009-11-07 100% 21MB 10.4MB/s 00:02

server.log.2009-11-08 100% 20MB 10.2MB/s 00:02

server.log.2009-11-09 100% 5171KB 5.1MB/s 00:01

server.log.2009-11-10 100% 343MB 8.8MB/s 00:39

server.log.2009-11-11 100% 109MB 9.1MB/s 00:12

server.log.2009-11-12 100% 109MB 8.4MB/s 00:13

real 2m46.731s

user 0m25.078s

sys 0m10.113s

time ssh hula2 'tar -cz /export/logs/account-collector/server.log.2009-11-*' | tar -xvz

tar: Removing leading `/' from member names

export/logs/account-collector/server.log.2009-11-01

export/logs/account-collector/server.log.2009-11-02

export/logs/account-collector/server.log.2009-11-03

export/logs/account-collector/server.log.2009-11-04

export/logs/account-collector/server.log.2009-11-05

export/logs/account-collector/server.log.2009-11-06

export/logs/account-collector/server.log.2009-11-07

export/logs/account-collector/server.log.2009-11-08

export/logs/account-collector/server.log.2009-11-09

export/logs/account-collector/server.log.2009-11-10

export/logs/account-collector/server.log.2009-11-11

export/logs/account-collector/server.log.2009-11-12

real 1m8.055s

user 0m7.232s

sys 0m5.428s

time ssh -C hula2 'tar -c /export/logs/account-collector/server.log.2009-11-*' | tar -xv

tar: Removing leading `/' from member names

export/logs/account-collector/server.log.2009-11-01

export/logs/account-collector/server.log.2009-11-02

export/logs/account-collector/server.log.2009-11-03

export/logs/account-collector/server.log.2009-11-04

export/logs/account-collector/server.log.2009-11-05

export/logs/account-collector/server.log.2009-11-06

export/logs/account-collector/server.log.2009-11-07

export/logs/account-collector/server.log.2009-11-08

export/logs/account-collector/server.log.2009-11-09

export/logs/account-collector/server.log.2009-11-10

export/logs/account-collector/server.log.2009-11-11

export/logs/account-collector/server.log.2009-11-12

real 1m28.785s

user 0m13.613s

sys 0m6.332s

The ssh -C option is a good alternative but it probably compresses by packet, achieving a lower compression when compared to compression by file.

Still the -C flag can be very useful.

Thx for the additions guys.

Comment by polaco 183 weeks and 2 days ago

Your point of view

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