Jerry Geis wrote: >>> / I am trying to do an rsync or scp from machine1 to machine2. > />>/ I am getting arg list to long. > />>/ > />>/ I am using centos 5 machine 1 and centos 4.5 on machine2. > />>/ > />>/ I am using the default shell which is bash. > />>/ > />>/ How can I get past this? > / >> Change your rsync command around a bit. > >> (If you can show us the command you're using, we can make some >> suggestions) > >> I would gather that you have a huge amount of files in the dir you're >> syncing. > > > I was trying to do "rsync -a root at machine2:/somedirectory ." > > There are multiple directories under the tree and yes many files. > > also tried "scp -r root at machine2:/somedirectory ." with the same result > of too many files. Are you sure that was the exact command? Rsync can handle a huge number of files internally, although it does require a certain amount of memory for each filename in the tree during the transfer. You should only see that 'arg list too long' error if you let the shell expand a wildcard like * in a directory containing many files. I usually prefer to go the source machine/directory and give the command like "rsync -a . somemachine:/somedirectory", though. -- Les Mikesell lesmikesell at gmail.com