[mdlug] Transfering /home with scp

[Aaron Kulkis]

Ein Bielaczyc wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 3, 2008 at 1:25 PM, Peter Bart <peter at petertheplumber.net> wrote:
>> Hi Everyone,
>>         I'm finally at the point of transferring all my files to my new
>>  notebook. The old one is a T30 Thinkpad running opensuse 10.3 and the
>>  new one is a T61 Thinkpad running opensuse 10.3. Can I simply use scp
>>  to copy the entire /home? Or are there files in /home that would be
>>  specific to the hardware/operating system it's on?
>>       If I do, I know I must use the -r flag to copy
>>  directories recursivly, the -p flag to preserve ownership and
>>  permissions. What about directories/files that allready exist and
>>  should be replaced, such as /home/.evolution? I've read that cp and scp
>>  are intentionally similar. The man page for cp lists -f as the flag to
>>  be used to replace an existing file if it can't be written to. I don't
>>  see the -f/force flag on scp's man page.  I'm somewhat at a loss on how
>>  to do that part. Of course I could delete all the files in /home before
>>  copying. But I've added programs on the new machine so that seems a
>>  little much because I don't want to remove files that won't be replaced
>>  and I might need.
>>     Would tar be a better, quicker option? ie Create the archive
>>  of /home on the old machine,
>>  burn
>>  it to disc, then unpack it on the new machine? I tried to make an
>>  archive of my /home several times but I think I wasn't patient enough
>>  or used the wrong command because it either didn't work or was taking
>>  several hours. On the other hand it appears that when unpacking an
>>  archive it overwrites existing files of the same name in the directory
>>  it's unpacked.
>>     There is probably another option I don't know about, so please
>>  suggest it!
>>
>>  Best Regards,
>>
>>  --
>>  Peter The Plumber sm on the Road
>>  State Licensed Plumber
>>  State Certified Backflow Device Tester
>>  Factory Trained Boiler Install/Service
>>  <http://petertheplumber.net>
>>  24h Service 313.215.5175
>>
>>  Don't sleep with a drip! Call a licensed and experienced plumber.
>>
> 
> I've had much success using rsync to transfer files. If security is a
> concern rsync can employ the use of ssh to transfer data inside a
> secure connection. If security is not a concern then I'd also
> recommend NFS, as it is fairly easy to setup, and then use rsync to
> transfer.

If security is a concern, he can plug both laptops into a hub
which is not connected to anything else.  Then there's no need
for ssh, or any other encryption, security BS.