* Greg Marks <gtma...@gmail.com> [20-02/26=We 21:48 -0600]:
> [...] if I accidentally copy an older version of
> a file on my laptop to a newer version of the
> file on my server, the newer version is lost.
>
> Is it possible to configure my server so that [it creates a
> backup on the server of any existing file that is] overwritten?
This is built-in to rsync with its options --backup,
--backup-dir, and --suffix. Generally, rsync is so much
more capable than scp that I never use scp any more.
* [full original post]:
> When using scp to copy files from my server to my laptop (both running
> Debian 10 and both with the same directory tree), I like to back up
> the files in case I discover that I've overwritten a newer version of
> a file with an older version. (I seem to make this mistake about once
> or twice a year.) To this end, on my laptop I've defined the following
> "get from server" function:
>
> files="";
> for file in "${@}";
> do
> if [[ -f $file ]]
> then
> cp -i -v "$file" /tmp/"$file".`date
> +\%Y.\%m.\%d.\%H.\%M.\%S`.backup
> fi
> done
> for file in "${@}"
> do
> files="$files $(pwd | sed
> 's/\/home\/<username1>/\/home\/<username0>/g')/\"$file\""
> done
> scp -T -p <username0>@[Server IP Address]:"$files" .
>
> If I discover that I've made a mistake, there's a backup copy in /tmp.
>
> I'd like to be able to create backup copies on my server when sending
> files in the other direction. At the moment, I have a "send to server"
> function on my laptop that simply reads:
>
> scp -p $@ <username0>@[Server IP Address]:`pwd | sed
> 's/\/home\/<username1>/\/home\/<username0>/g'`/
>
> But if I accidentally copy an older version of a file on my laptop to
> a newer version of the file on my server, the newer version is lost.
>
> Is it possible to configure my server so that when it receives a remote
> scp request to write to a file on the server, it parses the request
> and backs up to /tmp any existing file on the server that is about to
> be overwritten?
>
> Regards,
> Greg Marks
