Somebody in the thread at some point said: > Andy: >> It seems rsync will be a lot easier to learn and use than rcp... you > > I didn't meant to imply that I'm going to use rcp as a substitute for > rsync (which I got from your response). It's just that I wanted to learn > something simple before I dive into rsync. > > Also, I'll probably need rcp at some point (could've used it several > times already). As Mikkel says (I paraphrase) rcp is evil. Few people use it nowadays. >> AFAIK rcp bulk transfer is not encrypted, whereas with rsync-over-ssh it >> will be. > > Actually, I'm not concerned about encryption - it's on my LAN. I intend > to use the standard method with rsync. Actually the closer equivalent to rcp is scp, once again it uses ssh as the transport and is is available to target any box you can ssh into, and once again it is real easy to use, the same remote syntax as rsync and similar switches (eg, -rp) as cp. scp /srcpath/on/local root@remotebox:/destinationpath/on/remote/box or scp root@remotebox:/srcpath/on/remote/box /destinationpath/on/local It's not the best idea to get into the mindset that your lan is "safe"... for one thing it does not harden your paranoia nubbins and you might fall into using your "safe" methods with a remote box. For another, there is no evidence the other boxes on your lan are not already under someone else's control: "it's on my lan" is not magic medicine against attacks through apps like Thunderbird and Firefox, eg http://secunia.com/advisories/16901/ The best plan IMO is to treat ALL boxes as compromised and reporting your actions, although you have to elect one box at least as hopefully clean so it can hold your keys, you type your passphrases into it and so on. -Andy
