RCP(1)                     OpenBSD Reference Manual                     RCP(1)

NAME
     rcp - remote file copy

SYNOPSIS
     rcp [-p] file1 file2
     rcp [-pr] file ... directory

DESCRIPTION
     The rcp utility copies files between machines.  Each file or directory
     argument is either a remote file name of the form ``rname@rhost:path'',
     or a local file name (containing no `:' characters, or a `/' before any
     `:' characters).

     The options are as follows:

     -p      Causes rcp to attempt to preserve (duplicate) in its copies the
             modification times and modes of the source files, ignoring the
             umask.  By default, the mode and owner of file2 are preserved if
             it already existed; otherwise the mode of the source file modi-
             fied by the umask(2) on the destination host is used.

     -r      If any of the source files are directories, rcp copies each sub-
             tree rooted at that name; in this case the destination must be a
             directory.

     If path is not a full path name, it is interpreted relative to the login
     directory of the specified user ruser on rhost, or your current user name
     if no other remote user name is specified.  A path on a remote host may
     be quoted (using \, ", or ') so that the metacharacters are interpreted
     remotely.

     rcp does not prompt for passwords; it performs remote execution via
     rsh(1), and requires the same authorization.

     rcp handles third party copies, where neither source nor target files are
     on the current machine.

SEE ALSO
     cp(1), ftp(1), rsh(1)

HISTORY
     The rcp utility appeared in 4.2BSD.

BUGS
     Doesn't detect all cases where the target of a copy might be a file in
     cases where only a directory should be legal.

     Is confused by any output generated by commands in a .login, .profile, or
     .cshrc file on the remote host.

     The destination user and hostname may have to be specified as
     ``rhost.rname'' when the destination machine is running the 4.2BSD ver-
     sion of rcp.

OpenBSD 4.5                      March 1, 2009                               1