UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

hi

currently i am migrating some directories over to a new server. is there any command (rcp or ftp or anything) for me to use without changing the ownership and permission of the directory?
i am copying some directories from unix machine to linux machine. what is the exact command?
thanks

The 'ownership' of a file that you see on (for example) the output from 'ls -l' is just a mapping from a uid to a username. These entries are stored in /etc/passwd. So if you copy a files from one machine to another and you wish the 'ownership' to remin the same then first of all both machines must contain entries for the same username with the same uid.

In its simplest terms there must be entries in both machines /etc/passwd files where fields 1 and 3 are the same.

There are many little quirks to maintaining both ownership and permissions when copying files, the easiest way is to tar all the files up on the one machine. Copy the tar file over using whatever method you wish and then untar it on the target machine.

As Unbeliever said, both systems must have the same uids and gids matching the corresponding owner and group. If this is your case you can use rsync (http://rsync.samba.org) to copy or update (or synchronize) a directory tree.

Best regards!.