CODEWITHSUNDEEP
bashperformanceunixscpcp
Zohar81
Zohar81

Reputation: 5074

using remote copy (scp) to perform local copy

I've got a script that copy some content from local to remote, where remote is given as an input argument.

To do so, I'm using scp and it also support local copy (meaning that the remote given as input matches the local).

I wonder if it worth the effort to change the script so that in this special case, cp will be called rather than scp. perhaps do you know if the internal implementation of scp do this for me ?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 588

Answers (1)

sjsam
sjsam

Reputation: 21965

Instead of worrying about which is faster, why not implement some branching inside the script

if [ "$1" = "local" ]
then
 #Use cp
else
 #Use scp
fi

That said, scp should be slower than cp for the manpage says :

scp copies files between hosts on a network. It uses ssh(1) for data transfer, and uses the same authentication and provides the same security as ssh(1). Unlike rcp(1), scp will ask for passwords or passphrases if they are needed for authentication.

The overhead in scp is the time taken in authenticating the host and guest before a transfer occurs.

But you can use the -o NoHostAuthenticationForLocalhost option with scp as a workaround.

scp -o NoHostAuthenticationForLocalhost target destination

should be as fast as cp

Upvotes: 2

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