about "cp" command

Young_zhang · 01-19-2012, 02:10 AM

Hello, everyone
I use following command :

Code:

cp -rf /etc /test

but when i use the following command

Code:

du -sh /etc
du -sh /test

i found the size of /etc/ are differ from the size of /test.
why they are differ?
thanks for helping me.

amilo · 01-19-2012, 02:32 AM

Some files in /etc/may not been read by an user other then root.
Example /etc/sudoers

Young_zhang · 01-19-2012, 02:44 AM

but i use "cp" command by root.

deep27ak · 01-19-2012, 03:49 AM

try this command

Code:

#cp -rvf /etc/* /test/

amilo · 01-19-2012, 04:30 AM

Another possibility is when you copy a link, you are not making a copy of the link name, but its actual data.

Mr. Alex · 01-19-2012, 04:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Young_zhang

Hello, everyone
I use following command :
cp -rf /etc /test
but when i use the following command
du -sh /etc
du -sh /test
i found the size of /etc/ are differ from the size of /test.
why they are differ?
thanks for helping me.

Before doing that try to boot off of LiveCD with Linux, mount your root partition and then do the copying.

jv2112 · 01-19-2012, 05:26 AM

Dump the listing to files then use diff to figure out what is the source of the issue.

Code:

ls -lar /etc/ > etc.txt

ls -lar /test > test.txt


diff etc.txt test.txt

kishore_ari · 01-19-2012, 07:27 AM

cd /etc/;tree . > /tmp/etc.txt
cd /test/;tree . > /tmp/test.txt
diff /tmp/etc.txt /tmp/test.txt

If you find any differences you can compare them by using diff -y /tmp/etc.txt /tmp/test.txt.

I hope the above solution works for you.

Droa · 01-19-2012, 07:59 AM

if its becasue of the symlinks you can try using #cp -rdf /etc/* /test/

it will keep the symlinks

Young_zhang · 01-19-2012, 07:33 PM

when i use diff to compare the two file as following:

Code:

ls -ral --full-time /etc  >dir1.txt
ls -ral --full-time /test/etc >dir2.txt
awk -F " " '{print $5 "   " $9}' dir1.txt >new.txt
awk -F " " '{print $5 "   " $9}' dir2.txt >old.txt
diff new.txt old.txt

but the result is nothing,the two files are the same.
I fainted!

Young_zhang · 01-19-2012, 08:23 PM

could anyone help me? thanks.

jv2112 · 01-20-2012, 05:24 AM

How much are they off ?

Maybe use find by size to search for matches ?

Code:

 sudo find /etc/ -size +#k -exec ls -l {} \; | less

# -- number

K - Kilobtes
M - Megabytes
G - Gigabytes

I tried on my system and have no differences. This one is a mystery