Score:0

using unison to copy files across a LAN

nl flag

When I copy from one machine to another on my LAN, using scp, it opens a shell (in my case tcsh) and hence runs my rc file .cshrc. For various reasons, I'd like to bypass all of my .rc files when I'm copying. If I'm copying directories, I can use unison, which works very well. Unison claims also to support individual file transfers, but there's no documentation on how to do this. Is it possible? If not, is there a simple way to transfer files across a LAN without opening a shell? Thanks for any suggestions.

cn flag
Ray
I've never used `unison` directly myself. Instead, I've used `unison-gtk` (which, I believe, runs on top of `unison`). It does copy individual files...but it ensures the files at two locations to be the same. Both programs run on top of `rsync`. You can consider that, as well.
Score:1
hu flag

I use unison but I've never copied individual files; only full paths. But I see no reason that when you specify which path you'd like unison to sync over, you can't just specify a path to a single specific file. In fact there are examples of this in the Unison Manual, like

unison a.tmp ssh://remotehostname/a.tmp
nl flag
Thanks very much, it did indeed work. The main reason for me to use `unison` rather than `scp` is that when I use `socket` rather than `ssh` it bypasses my startup files and is pretty instantaneous. (I know `this is insecure, but it's a LAN to LAN transfer)
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