Bulk copy large blocks of data between File Systems (run as root iff you do not own all of the files!)

tar cpof - src |( cd des; tar xpof -)

Using tape archive create a tar file in Stdout (-) and pipe that into a compound command to extract the tar file from Stdin at the destination. This similar to "Copy via tar pipe ...", but copies across file systems boundaries. I prefer to use cp -pr for copying within the same file system.

Sample Output

Script started on Sun Sep 20 13:07:18 2009
$ pwd
/Volumes/Photos1/Users/Videos/PixelPerfect
$ du -sh 2006
1.1G	2006
$ ls -1R 2006 | wc -l
      15
$ tar cpof - 2006 |( cd ~/Videos/; tar xpof -)
$ du -sh !$
$ du -sh ~/Videos/2006
1.1G	/Users/davidpotter42/Videos/2006
Script done on Sun Sep 20 13:11:37 2009

-2

By: davidpotter42

2009-09-20 20:43:30

cd tar

4 Alternatives + Submit Alt

Copy via tar pipe while preserving file permissions (cp does not!; run this command with root!)

cp options: -p will preserve the file mode, ownership, and timestamps -r will copy files recursively also, if you want to keep symlinks in addition to the above: use the -a/--archive option
This is sample output - yours may be different.
4

cp -pr olddirectory newdirectory

stanishjohnd · 2009-08-22 22:11:24 8
Copy via tar pipe while preserving file permissions (run this command as root!)

It's the same like 'cp -p' if available. It's faster over networks than scp. If you have to copy gigs of data you could also use netcat and the tar -z option in conjunction -- on the receiving end do: # nc -l 7000 | tar -xzvpf - ...and on the sending end do: # tar -czf - * | nc otherhost 7000
This is sample output - yours may be different.
1

tar -C /oldirectory -cvpf - . | tar -C /newdirector -xvf -

Cowboy · 2009-08-22 20:05:49 5
Duplicate a directory tree using tar and pipes
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-3

(cd /source/dir ; tar cvf - .)|(cd /dest/dir ; tar xvpf -)

tkunz · 2009-07-14 20:03:23 3
Duplicate a directory tree using tar and pipes

the f is for file and - stdout, This way little shorter. I Like copy-directory function It does the job but looks like SH**, and this doesn't understand folders with whitespaces and can only handle full path, but otherwise fine, function copy-directory () { ; FrDir="$(echo $1 | sed 's:/: :g' | awk '/ / {print $NF}')" ; SiZe="$(du -sb $1 | awk '{print $1}')" ; (cd $1 ; cd .. ; tar c $FrDir/ )|pv -s $SiZe|(cd $2 ; tar x ) ; } Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
copy-directory /media/cdrom /mnt/backup/
 104MB 0:00:06 [7.43MB/s] [============>                                                      ]  9% ETA 0:00:58
```
-11

(cd /source/dir ; tar cv .)|(cd /dest/dir ; tar xv)

marssi · 2009-07-19 10:31:13 12

What Others Think

rahimhh21 · 109 weeks ago

Perfecthomepugs · 100 weeks and 4 days ago

pugpuppies95 · 62 weeks and 5 days ago

What do you think?

Any thoughts on this command? Does it work on your machine? Can you do the same thing with only 14 characters?

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