I never tried this, but what should work is this: tar --ignore-failed-read [/mnt/sda1] -czf - | ssh remoteuser@remote.system "tar -xzf - | " You have to have the whole string that the remote shell is to execute into quotes, so it is important to OMIT the double quotes around the pipe characters. having a - as file name is interpreted to mean stdin or stdout (as appropriate). This is the key to avoiding these pesky temporarily files. tar will simply produce its output on stdout (locally), and consume the data from stdin (remotely). You might want to look into using rsync. That might be an easier (and probably better) solution for what you want to do. On 2/16/2012 11:42 PM, Michael Havens wrote: > so wait a second.... could I put fsarchiver on the server and then: > > tar --ignore-failed-read [/mnt/sda1] -czf - | ssh > remoteuser@remote.system "tar -xzf - > "| "" > > so the tar command will create a tarball and the the pipe will > transfer the tarball to the server and extract it wich the second pipe > will feed into fsarchiver. Is that correct? I have a question: what > does the minus sign in front of the pipes represent? Well... I know > it represents the name of the tar ball but.... is it the name? Could I > put anything in that place? > > and then Enriques command (tar jcf - /path/to/backup|ssh > user@otherbox 'tar xf -') would compress a tarball and then create a > non compressed archive on the server. > > You know... I wondered if I could use scp for this. Investigating the > man page reveals that this is the program I want to use. The text of > the command that I should issue I think would be (I want to do this > from a third computer): > > scp -Cr user1@host1:mnt/sda1 user2@host2:desired/directory/file/name > > I don't know if I assigned a user1 or a host1 name. How can I find > this out? If I didn't how would I assign one or change it to a more > appropriate name? > > This is fun! > > > --------------------------------------------------- > PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us > To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: > http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss