I've been using Linux for about a week now. I just installed Red Hat 7.3 onto a new hard drive, (SCSI), that is in a HP Proliant DL320 G2. Here is my dilema. I just moved a directory from one of my Sun servers to this new hd. The contents of this directory is for a database I want the new hd to run at boot time. I want to take this new directory and copy or move it's contents to the / directory. Upon advice of a co-worker I booted the server w/Knnopix 4.4. From a terminal window I ran su - to gain root access and ran the following command:
cd /mnt/sda3 (I found the newly moved directory here)

Next I ran this command from the following prompt:
root@0[sda3]# cp -prf newdir .

This didn't work and gave me the following message:
cp 'newdir' and './newdir' are the same file

I decided to try this from the same prompt
root@0[sda3]#cd newdir
root@0[newdir]#cp *.* /
cp: cannot stat '*.*': No such file or directory

Any takers?

thanks,
linuxuser00

This is because you were trying to copy a directory over itself. I don't think this is what you want. You have to put a correct destination path.

This means that there is any files with a dot in its name. Can you post the list of files contained in the directory you want to copy? Anyway, why don't you simply use "*" instead of "*.*"?

I would recommend doing this in single user mode rather than booting up with a live cd. I like using cp -ax [source] [destination]. There are other things to consider and I found Hard Disk Upgrade mini-HOWTO to be a great source for doing this operation. Check out section 7 for the cp command that works best for your situation.

Bill

"." means current directory---what you would get if you typed "pwd". So--in your first example, you are trying to copy a file from "here" to "here". It complains because it thinks you are trying to overwrite an existing file.

the syntax of cp is: cp <options> <source> <target>

source and target can be absolute pathnames, or relative to the location. Let's say you are in /home/fred and you want to move a file or directory to /home/alice. Any of the following will work:
cp <-R if moving a directory and all contents> <file_or_directory_name> ../alice
cp <-R if moving a directory and all contents> <file_or_directory_name> /home/alice
cp <-R if moving a directory and all contents> </home/fred/file_or_directory_name> ../alice

Again, "." means "here", ".." means "up one", "../.." means "up 2" etc.
Also, the "." takes on different meaning when used with a wild card. e.g. ".*" means any file beginning with "."

This is what I did:
root@0[newdir]# cp * /
cp: omitting directory '/bin'
cp: omitting directory '/etc'
cp: omitting directory '/home'
cp: omitting directory '/lib'
cp: omitting directory '/opt'
cp: omitting directory '/root'
cp: omitting directory '/sbin'
cp: omitting directory '/usr'
cp: omitting directory '/var'

root@0[newdir]# cp -a /bin /etc /home /lib /opt /root /sbin /usr /var /
cp: '/bin' and '/bin' are the same file
cp: '/etc' and 'etc' are the same file
cp: '/home' and '/home' are the same file
cp: '/lib' and '/lib' are the same file
cp: '/opt' and '/opt' are the same file
cp: '/root' and '/root' are the same file
cp: '/sbin' and '/sbin' are the same file
cp: '/usr' and '/usr' are the same file
cp: '/var' and '/var' are the same file

I changed directories and ran the following:

root@0[sda3]# cp -prf newdir /
cp: overwrite '/newdir/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-lo'?
cp: overwrite '/newdir/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifdown', overriding mode 0777?
cp: overwrite '/newdir/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifdown-ipv6'?
cp: overwrite '/newdir/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifdown-post'?
cp: overwrite '/newdir/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifdown-ppp'?
cp: overwrite '/newdir/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifdown-sit'?
cp: overwrite '/newdir/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifdown-sl'?

ect, ect, ect....

that continued for a few more files and then I got this:

cp: overwrite '/newdir/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/core.25001'?
cp: writing '/newdir/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/core.25001' : No space left on device

At the very end it gave me this:

cp: cannot creat directory '/newdir/bin' : No space left on device
cp: cannot creat directory '/newdir/home' : No space left on device
cp: cannot creat directory '/newdir/lib' : No space left on device
cp: cannot creat directory '/newdir/opt' : No space left on device
cp: cannot creat directory '/newdir/sbin' : No space left on device
cp: cannot creat directory '/newdir/var' : No space left on device
cp: cannot creat directory '/newdir/root' : No space left on device
cp: cannot creat directory '/newdir/usr' : No space left on device

there's plenty of space on the disk, especially on partition sda3. I'm trying to overwrite those directories that already exist in /. The newdir subdirectories contain information / subdirectories don't have. What else can I do?

thanks for the help!

I get the same results in single user mode. Is there anything else I can do or is there something wrong w/the newdir files?

I'm afraid that you are spinning your wheels here...

First, what was in newdir when you did this?: "cp * /"--ie copy all in this folder to /
Apparently, there were some directories---to copy directories, you need cp -R AND--how did all those directories get in newdir??? (Looks like the contents of /)

cp -a /bin /etc /home /lib /opt /root /sbin /usr /var /
Here you are trying to copy /xxx into / But / already has those directories--hence the messages.
<<<BUT--I did learn something new here---the -a option>>>

Let's go back to basics: What is the current configuration and how do you want to change it?

Thanks for the reply...
This is what I'm trying to do. I have a database running on a machine I want to get rid of. I want to move the database to a new machine. Right now, (on the new machine), the hard drive has the basic config, newly formated disk. I copied /bin /etc /home /lib /sbin /var /root and /usr directories of the old DB to a sun server. I then copied over those dir's from the sun machine to the new machine and placed them under the directory /newdir. This is what you see in the / directory:

localhost#cd /
localhost/#ls
bin etc lib mnt proc sbin tmp
boot home lost+found ntpdate.sh newdir usr dev
initrd misc opt root var
localhost/#cd newdir
localhastnewdir#ls
bin etc home lib opt var root usr

I have to overwrite what's in / with what's in newdir.

Well....
I do not understand why you would need to copy all those directories just to move a database.

If you really need to do what you said, then you cannot do it with the machine running from the disk (partition) mounted at /. You will have to run from a live CD, another OS, etc.

But first, what directories actually hold the database? Isn't that what needs to be copied???