Skip to main content

Linux copy or backup files to remote machine


Copying or backing up files to the remote machine is a good practice if hard disk space is not a concern.

Having a backup on the same machine is like the old saying "putting eggs in one basket".

Backing up data on another machine would simply eradicate the worries of losing data provided that the backup is really a backup.

Backup should be tested as often as possible.

Backup is for disaster recovery and it should be able to cover the disaster and not add a burden.

In Linux "tar" is a good old tool which does a pretty awesome job to backup or copy files.

TAR - tape archiver, as the name implies it is designed for tape backup.

To automate backup using “cron” scheduler, "tar" is a good choice since it will only require the 'user name', 'remote machine IP address or hostname' and the path on the remote machine where the file should be copied.

Once the above requirements are known, tar will be able to copy to the remote machine and will not ask for any password.

Using automated scheduler like "cron", “tar” is ideal for remote copying but of course, other commands or tool can be used but sometimes requires manually typing the password or configuring both machines to trust each other using some certificates.

Since tar, was designed for tapes once all the necessary options are provided on the command and no other issues, tar would backup or copy the files to the remote machine without any user intervention.

Here's the command:

tar cvzf - /path_to/local/folder | ssh [remote-user-name] @[remote-ip-address] "dd of=/path_on/remote/server/file_name_data.tar.gz"

cvzf - options for the tar command.

Consult "man tar" to know more about those options.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Notepad++ convert multiple lines to a single line and vice versa

Notepad++ is an awesome text editing tool, it can accept regex to process the text data. If the data is in a “.csv” format or comma separated values which is basically just a text file that can either be opened using a text editor, excel or even word. Notepad++ can process the contents of the file using regex. Example if the data has multiple rows or lines, and what is needed is to convert the whole lines of data into a single line. Notepad++ can easily do it using regex. However, if the data is on a single line and it needs to be converted into multiple lines or rows then regex can also be used for this case. Here’s an example on how to convert multiple rows or lines into a single line. Example data: Multiple rows, just a sample data. Press Ctrl+H, and  on "Find what" type: [\r\n]+ and on "Replace with" type with: , (white space) --white space is needed if need to have a space in between the data. See image below, "Regular Expression" must be se

WMIC get computer name

WMIC get computer model, manufacturer, computer name and  username. WMIC is a command-line tool and that can generate information about computer model, its manufacturer, its username and other informations depending on the parameters provided. Why would you need a command line tool if there’s a GUI to check? If you have 20 or 100 computers, or even more. It’s quite a big task just checking the GUI to check the computer model and username. If you have remote computers, you need to delegate someone in the remote office or location to check. Or you can just write a batch file or script to automate the task. Here’s the code below on how get computer model, manufacturer and the username. Open an elevated command prompt and type:     wmic computersystem get "Model","Manufacturer", "Name", "UserName" Just copy and paste the code above, the word “computersystem” does not need to be change to a computer name. A

How to check office version from command line

The are quite a few ways to check office version it can be done via registry, PowerShell or VBScript and of course, good old command line can also do it. Checking Windows office version whether it is Office 2010, Office, 2013, Office 2016 or other version is quite important to check compatibility of documents; or just a part of software inventory. For PowerShell this simple snippet can check the office version: $ol = New-Object -ComObject Excel.Application $ol . Version The command line option will tell you where’s the path located; the result will also tell whether office is 32-bit, 64-bit and of course the version of the office as well. Here’s the command that will check the office version and which program directory the file is located which will tell whether it’s 32-bit or 64-bit. Command to search for Excel.exe: DIR C:\ /s excel.exe | find   /i "Directory of"  Above command assumes that program files is on  C: drive. Sample Outpu