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up vote 1 down vote favorite

I would like to know best way to copy directory structure from one server(Linux) to another:

  • without root user
  • servers are not connected (e.g. can't use SSH directly between them)
  • I need to copy only folders and subfolders, without files
  • permissions on folders must also bi transferred

So i have user@server1 with some directory structure. I need to copy this structure to user@server2 without files, with same permissions. Users on both servers have same permissions and are in the same group, servers are not connected.

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Not connected so you're looking for some offline approach (e.g. create tar file) ? –  steve yesterday

2 Answers 2

up vote 3 down vote

Ideally you'd do something like rsync or scp, but then the machines would indeed have to be connected. I'd go for using tar with find instead if you have no means of direct transfer, it can preserve users, permissions, and symlinks.

On one host:

$ find yourdirectory/ -type d | tar -cvzf archive.tar.gz --no-recursion --files-from -

Transfer the archive by any means (ftp? USB stick? smoke signals?)

On target host:

$ tar -xvzf archive.tar.gz
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up vote 2 down vote

On server1:

find . -type d -printf '%p\n%m\n' >dir_list

Transfer the file dir_list from server1 to server2 however you see fit.

On server2:

while read -r filename; do
    read -r perms
    mkdir -p "$filename"
    chmod "$perms" "$filename"
done <dir_list

This will create all the directories owned by the user you run as on server2. Changing the ownership cannot be done without superuser.

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This breaks if there is a directory with a carriage return in its name, though that's probably rare enough it can be handled manually. –  drewbenn yesterday
1  
True. If handling this is necessary, you can use -printf '%p\0%m\0' and read -d ''. –  Tom Hunt yesterday

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