How to download a file in a shell script after connecting to another server via ssh? - linux

Question

My goal:
having a shellscript for a cronjob (on MacOSX Snow Leopard) that connects to a Debian machine with ssh (public/private key login), executes a tar command and downloads the tarred file afterwards.
My problem:
The login works, also the execution of some commands. But how can I download a file back to the local machine?
This is what I have so far:
This is the content of the shell script so far:
#!/bin/bash
ssh user#remotehost << 'ENDSSH'
tar -C / -czf /home/user/stuff.tar.gz /home/user/stuff
ENDSSH

Answer 1

Short and simple, no heredoc needed.
ssh -Te none user#remotehost "tar -C / -cz /home/user/stuff" >stuff.tar.gz

Answer 2

Stream it back.
#!/bin/bash
ssh user#remotehost << 'ENDSSH' > stuff.tar.gz
tar -C / -czf - /home/user/stuff
ENDSSH

Answer 3

this might be want you want.
scp stuff.tar.gz user#remotehost:/"directory to place this file"/

Answer 4

Simply rsync the file once it's created:
#!/bin/bash
ssh user#remotehost tar -C / -czf /home/user/stuff.tar.gz /home/user/stuff
rsync -chavP --stats user#remotehost:/home/user/stuff.tar.gz .
This does initiate a second connection to remotehost but will save you copying data across the network when the file has not changed (much) since the last time it was archived.

Answer 5

Why downloading the tar file and not create the tar content on stdout?
Ie:
ssh user#machine '(' cd /the/dir '&&' tar cf - list of files ')' >archive.tar

Answer 6

I. How to compress files or folders via SSH
For different compressed formats, you need to use different command lines:
Zip
To compress a file or folder to a zip file:
zip -r file.zip file
Bz2
To compress a file (ONLY) to a bz2 file:
Bzip2 -zk file
Gz
To compress a file (ONLY) to a gz file:
gzip -c file > file.gz
By the way, you need to change the above "file" to the file name with extension (if any) you want to compress, while you can replace the following "xxx" with any keywords:
Tar
To compress one file or folder to a tar file:
tar -cvf xxx.tar file
To compress multiple files and/or folders to a tar file:
tar -cvf xxx.tar file1 file2 folder1 folder2 ...
Tar.bz2
To compress one file or folder to a tar.bz2 file:
tar -cvjf xxx.tar.bz2 file
To compress multiple files and/or folders to a tar.bz2 file:
tar -cvjf xxx.tar.bz2 file1 file2 folder1 folder2 ...
Tar.gz
To compress one file or folder to a tar.gz file:
tar -cvzf xxx.tar.gz file
To compress multiple files and/or folders to a tar.gz file:
tar -cvzf xxx.tar.gz file1 file2 folder1 folder2 ...
II. How to extract file via SSH
To extract a file will be easier, since you don't need to worry about folders:
Zip
To extract a zip file:
unzip file.zip
Bz2
To extract a bz2 file:
bunzip2 file.bz2
Gz
To extract a gz file:
gzip -d file.gz
Tar
To extract a tar file:
tar -xvf file.tar
Tar.bz2
To extract a tar.bz2 file:
tar -xvjf file.tar.bz2
Tar.gz
To extract a tar.gz file:
tar -xvzf file.tar.gz
By the way, you need to replace the above "file"s of the compressed files with the real file names.
Bonus:
Besides remote servers, the above command lines are also available for a Mac OS computer with the Terminal application.