Is there a way to copy a directory (retaining the permissions and owners) without copying the contents of the directory?

If there is no such thing... then I need a way to determine if a target path is a file or a directory, and if it is a directory I need to make a new directory elsewhere that has the same name, owner and permissions.

Any ideas on a good way to do this?


Basically, I'm trying write a script to copy 200 GB of files over a network to a new server, and I'd like to do it by generating a list with the find command. That way, I can migrate large chunks of the files over the course of a week, and on the day of the migration generate a new list of files that changed in the last week and then copy just the chagned files over minimizing the down time. However, the list will contain directories that I can't just use the 'cp' command on because it will copy all the contents of the directory.

Copy your chunks over the course of a week, but then use "rsync" to do the final cleanup. "rsync" will only copy files that have changed.

hmm, I'll have to look into that. looks like I might be trying to reinvent the wheel here

omg... rsync is awesome. files are transferring as we speak

god I love *nix systems

Just hit the little thumbs up button, if you don't mind.

don't mind at all! the last files are transferring now

In case anyone is tracing my footsteps in the future, here are some helpful details. Once the rsync server was running on the new debian machine (which was automatic just by installing it using apt-get), I used the following command from the old server (which already had rsync):

rsync -r -H -p -o -g -t -v -e ssh /home root@target.server.com:/

-r = recursive copy
-H = copy hard links
-p = retain permissions
-o = retain owner
-g = retain group
-t = retain time stamps
-v = verbose
-e ssh = encrypt with ssh
/home = the directory you wish to transfer (can be a full path)
root@target.server.com = log on to targer.server.com as root user
:/ = this means to transfer the files to the root directory of the target server

Since /home goes in the root directory, targeting / works. If you had to copy a more specific directory such as /home/user25 you would want the last part to say /home