RCP(1)

📦
version 0.17 · 3 versions
, in epel 10, epel 9, fedora 43, fedora 44

🎀 NAME 🎀

okay so bestie, this is the RCP(1) page from the General Commands Manual, and it’s literally about rcp — remote file copy. slay.

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

rcp [-px] file1 file2
rcp [-px] [-r] file ... directory

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

rcp copies files between machines. Every file or directory argument is either a remote file name of the form rname@rhost:path, or a local file name (one that contains no : characters, or has a / before any :s). no cap.

the flag tea is:

  • -r — if any of the source files are directories, rcp copies each subtree rooted at that name; in this case the destination must be a directory. periodt.
  • -p — makes rcp attempt to preserve (duplicate) in its copies the modification times and modes of the source files, ignoring the umask. by default, the mode and owner of file2 are preserved if it already existed; otherwise the mode of the source file modified by umask(2) on the destination host is used. iconic.

also, -x is chillin’ in the synopsis inside -px — the page doesn’t give it its own description, and I’m not gonna make one up, bestie. 💅

If path is not a full path name, it is interpreted relative to the login directory of the specified user ruser on rhost, or your current user name if no other remote user name is specified. A path on a remote host may be quoted (using \, ", or ´) so that the metacharacters are interpreted remotely.

rcp does not prompt for passwords; it performs remote execution via rsh(1), and requires the same authorization. ngl, that’s the whole auth vibe.

rcp handles third party copies, where neither source nor target files are on the current machine. main character energy.

🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

cp(1), ftp(1), rsh(1), rlogin(1) — go read these too, bestie.

⭐ HISTORY ⭐

The rcp command appeared in 4.2BSD. vintage.

💀 BUGS 💀

  • Doesn't detect all cases where the target of a copy might be a file in cases where only a directory should be legal.
  • Is confused by any output generated by commands in a .login, .profile, or .cshrc file on the remote host.
  • The destination user and hostname may have to be specified as rhost.rname when the destination machine is running the 4.2BSD version of rcp.

this page is serving Linux NetKit (0.17) realness, dated August 15, 1999 — bye bestie! 💖

📦 where this page comes from