Updated: 2022/Sep/29

Please read Privacy Policy. It's for your privacy.

RCP(1)                      General Commands Manual                     RCP(1)

NAME
     rcp - remote file copy

SYNOPSIS
     rcp [-46p] file1 file2
     rcp [-46pr] file ... directory

DESCRIPTION
     rcp copies files between machines.  Each file or directory argument is
     either a remote file name of the form "rname@rhost:path", or a local file
     name (containing no `:' (colon) characters, or a `/' (slash) before any
     `:' (colon) characters).

     The rhost can be an IPv4 or an IPv6 address string.  Since IPv6 addresses
     already contain `:' (colon) characters, an IPv6 address string must be
     enclosed between `[' (left square bracket) and `]' (right square bracket)
     characters.  Otherwise, the first occurrence of a `:' (colon) character
     would be interpreted as the separator between the rhost and the path.
     For example,

           [2001:DB8::800:200C:417A]:tmp/file

     Options:

     -4    Use IPv4 addresses only.

     -6    Use IPv6 addresses only.

     -p    The -p option causes rcp to 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 the umask(2) on the destination host is used.

     -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.

     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.

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

SEE ALSO
     cp(1), ftp(1), rcmd(1), rlogin(1), rsh(1), rcmd(3), hosts.equiv(5),
     rhosts(5), environ(7)

HISTORY
     The rcp utility appeared in 4.2BSD.  The version of rcp described here
     has been reimplemented with Kerberos in 4.3BSD-Reno.

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.

NetBSD 10.99                     March 8, 2005                    NetBSD 10.99