Moving Files from One Server to Another

**thunderclap** · March 10th, 2011

I'm moving my site to a new VPS and need to learn how to move the files from my current server to the new one. I'd rather not download everything to my computer and then re-upload everything... seems like a lot of wasted time. There has to be a way to copy between the two servers, but how? I have heard someone mention rsync... is that a program I could use? If so, how?

I appreciated any help in this matter.

**arrrghhh** · March 10th, 2011

rsync would probably be the best method.

Assuming you can scp between the boxes, you can rsync between the boxes.

**CharlesA** · March 10th, 2011

+1 to rsync.

**thunderclap** · March 10th, 2011

What would be the best command line to use for this?

**arrrghhh** · March 10th, 2011

Originally Posted by thunderclap

What would be the best command line to use for this?

rsync is the command...

Code:

man rsync

^^ if you want to learn more about it.

**BkkBonanza** · March 11th, 2011

Here's an example,

assuming you have ssh access to both server's, oldsrv.com being the old one,
and the username is the same on both servers
and the file tree to copy is /var/www
login to the new one,

rsync -av user@oldsrv.com:/var/www/* /var/www/

It will login to oldsrv.com and prompt for auth, then build a file list and copy the content to the target on the current server.

**Lars Noodén** · March 11th, 2011

Originally Posted by BkkBonanza

Here's an example,

assuming you have ssh access to both server's, oldsrv.com being the old one,
and the username is the same on both servers
and the file tree to copy is /var/www
login to the new one,

rsync -av user@oldsrv.com:/var/www/* /var/www/

It will login to oldsrv.com and prompt for auth, then build a file list and copy the content to the target on the current server.

+1 for rsync

Be sure to encrypt the rsync connection, though.

Code:

rsync -e ssh -av user@oldsrv.com:/var/www/*  /var/www

**thunderclap** · March 11th, 2011

I appreciate all the input. Everything moved quickly and easily. Thank you!

**BkkBonanza** · March 11th, 2011

Actually the -e option is only needed if you're using a different shell than ssh (which is the default) or if you need to specify non-default options like a non-standard port (22). rsync will use ssh by default which is always encrypted.