How to ssh copy a file from local to web host when logged in?

[Matt Graham]

From: Alex Dean <alex at crackpot.org>
> On Dec 19, 2010, at 3:31 PM, joe at actionline.com wrote:
>> But my question was what syntax should I use *while I am logged in*
>> to my web host server to copy a file (or directory) from my local
>> system to my web host server.
>> # scp [what] to [what] ???
> I'm not aware of any program which can transfer a file using your
> current ssh session.  scp, rsync, & others expect to make their own
> connections to the remote system, and then close that connection when
> the file transfer is complete.

This is true, and it's usually the best way to do things.  I thought about
this, though, and came up with an inefficient and kludgy way to transfer stuff
using an interactive ssh session and a couple of evil Perl scripts:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
# file2hex.pl
$i=0;
while(read(STDIN,$l,1)!=0){
        printf "%02x ",ord($l);
        $i++;
        if($i==15){ print "\n"; $i=0; }
}
# end

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
# hex2file.pl
while($l=<>){
        chomp $l;
        @a=split(/ /,$l);
        foreach $c (@a){ print chr(hex($c)); }
        }
# end

2 konsole tabs/whatever, one on machine1 , one on machine2:

machine1:~$ file2hex.pl < somefile | more
machine2:~$ hex2file.pl > somefile

Copy screenful of hex, paste into other session, hit spacebar, repeat until
done, hit Ctrl-D on machine2 session after last screenful pasted.  Net result
is to transfer somefile from machine1 to machine2.

This is really a terrible idea, and if you can transfer the files in any other
way, it's preferable.  But it does seem to work.

-- 
Matt G / Dances With Crows
The Crow202 Blog:  http://crow202.org/wordpress/
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