parallel-slurp(1)

💖 parallel-slurp — the manual, but make it make sense 💖

okay bestie, welcome to parallel-slurp(1) from the General Commands Manual section — yes she's a section 1 girlie, we love that for her 🎀

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✨ NAME ✨

parallel-slurp — the parallel file download program. she slurps. that's the whole name. iconic, no notes 💅

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🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

parallel-slurp [-vAr] [-h hosts_file] [-H [user@]host[:port]] [-l user]
[-p par] [-o outdir] [-e errdir] [-t timeout] [-O options] [-x args] [-X
arg] [-L localdir] remote local

that's the whole vibe up there ⬆️ like, that's the shape of it. keep reading, it gets so good 🍓

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🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

so parallel-slurp is literally a program for copying files in parallel from a whole bunch of hosts, and she does it using the scp program. main character energy fr fr ✨

and the features?? she provides things like passing a password to scp, saving output to files, and timing out. like she's not just doing one thing, she's doing the most 👑

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🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

• -h host_file, --hosts host_file — read hosts from the given host_file. lines in the host file are of the form [user@]host[:port] and they can totally include blank lines and comments (which are lines beginning with #). and if you give her multiple host files (aka you use the -h option more than once) then parallel-slurp behaves as though those files were all concatenated together. and if a host is specified multiple times?? she will literally connect the given number of times. she does not dedupe. she does not judge. 💖
• -H [user@]host[:port], --host [user@]host[:port], -H "[user@]host[:port] [ [user@]host[:port ] ... ]", --host "[user@]host[:port] [ [user@]host[:port ] ... ]" — add the given host strings to the list of hosts. this option may be given multiple times, and it may also be used in conjunction with the -h option. they're besties, they work together 🫶
• -l user, --user user — use the given username as the default for any host entries that don't specifically specify a user. the fallback girlie 💜
• -p parallelism, --par parallelism — use the given number as the maximum number of concurrent connections. she has limits. healthy boundaries. 💅
• -t timeout, --timeout timeout — make connections time out after the given number of seconds. and with a value of 0, parallel-slurp will not timeout any connections — she'll wait forever, she's loyal like that 😭
• -o outdir, --outdir outdir — save standard output to files in the given directory. filenames are of the form [user@]host[:port][.num] where the user and port are only included for hosts that explicitly specify them. and the number is a counter that is incremented each time for hosts that are specified more than once. so yes, repeat hosts get numbered, slay 🌈
• -e errdir, --errdir errdir — save standard error to files in the given directory. filenames are of the same form as with the -o option. same energy, different stream ✨
• -x args, --extra-args args — passes extra SSH command-line arguments (peep the ssh(1) man page for more info about SSH arguments). this option may be specified multiple times. and get this — the arguments are processed to split on whitespace, protect text within quotes, and escape with backslashes. if you wanna pass arguments without that processing, use the -X option instead. she's doing ✨parsing✨ okay 🎀
• -X arg, --extra-arg arg — passes a single SSH command-line argument (again, ssh(1) man page for the SSH argument lore). unlike the -x option, no processing is performed on the argument, including word splitting. to pass multiple command-line arguments, use the option once for each argument. one arg, one flag, no games 👑
• -O options, --options options — SSH options in the format used in the SSH configuration file (the ssh_config(5) man page has more on this). this option may be specified multiple times. 💜
• -A, --askpass — prompt for a password and pass it to ssh. the password may be used for either to unlock a key or for password authentication. the password is transferred in a fairly secure manner (e.g., it will not show up in argument lists). however — be aware that a root user on your system could potentially intercept the password. 👀 so like, not the vibe for sketchy shared boxes, ok bestie?
• -v, --verbose — include error messages from ssh with the -i and -e options. she gets chatty. we love a girl who overshares 🗣️
• -r, --recursive — recursively copy directories. go deep, girl 🌀
• -L localdir, --localdir localdir — copy files from the remote host to the given local directory. 💖

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💅 TIPS 💅

the ssh_config file can include an arbitrary number of Host sections. each host entry specifies ssh options which apply only to the given host. and host definitions can even behave like aliases if the HostName option is included. this ssh feature, in combination with parallel-ssh host files, provides a tremendous amount of flexibility. like the way that these two things combine?? it's giving unlimited power, fr fr 🔥

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⭐ EXIT STATUS ⭐

the exit status codes from parallel-slurp are as follows — memorize these, they're the group chat receipts:

• 0 — success 🎉
• 1 — miscellaneous error 🫠
• 2 — syntax or usage error 🙈
• 3 — at least one process was killed by a signal or timed out. 💀
• 4 — all processes completed, but at least one scp process reported an error (exit status other than 0). 😭

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👑 AUTHORS 👑

written by Brent N. Chun <bnc@theether.org> and Andrew McNabb <amcnabb@mcnabbs.org>. absolute legends, we stan 🫶

https://github.com/lilydjwg/parallel-ssh

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🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

ssh(1), ssh_config(5), parallel-ssh(1), parallel-scp(1), parallel-rsync(1), parallel-nuke(1), — the whole friend group, go read them all, iykyk 💖

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okay that's the whole page bestie, you're so welcome 💖 this one's dated January 24, 2012, and yeah, it's the parallel-slurp(1) page, she's been serving since 2012 and she's still eating. periodt. ✨🦋🎀