Scp the current dir `.` to another name

Question

This is an edge use case, but I can't find a solution.

I want to copy the current directory ., without necessarily knowing or caring for its name, to a new directory. Using scp.

Bash does not seem to have a problem. e.g. cp -r . ../new-name will generate a new directory copy without any problems. But with scp -r . host:new-name i get scp: error: unexpected filename: .

The workarounds I'm using is to use rsync instead of scp, or to use scp -r ../current-name instead of scp -r .. But it would be nice to understand why the obvious way do not work with scp and if there's a simpler 'fix'.

Also note that I do no want to scp the contents of the current directory to another already-existing directory as in scp -r ./* host:existing-dir/. The goal is to copy the current directory itself to a new location (i.e. create a new directory)-

score 30 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 26 '20 at 18:59

30

According to this previous answer, the culprit is CVE-2017-20685; apparently, malicious remote hosts could exploit improper name validation, so support for . in paths for scp was disabled. The workaround is to replace . with $(pwd).

answered Mar 26 '20 at 18:59

gnubeard

1,224

How about remote CWD? Is there a similar "trick" for that? – David Balažic May 04 '20 at 20:43
3

PS: You mean "$(pwd)", right? (I just had a failure because the Windows 10 version of scp trips on filenames that contain spaces) – David Balažic May 04 '20 at 20:44

Attie · Answer 2 · 2020-03-26T19:14:41.173

12

You can expand . to the full path using something like ${PWD}, pwd or readlink -f .

scp -r "${PWD}" ${remote}:${dst_path}

edited Mar 26 '20 at 19:14

answered Mar 26 '20 at 19:09

Attie

19,974

That only works correctly if the destination does not yet exist. If the destination already exists you get a new directory named after the source directory inside the destination. – tzs Aug 25 '21 at 01:13

score 3 · Answer 3 · answered Oct 21 '21 at 05:08

3

scp ./* demo@test.com:/targetdir

I try ./* replate -r ./, it work

answered Oct 21 '21 at 05:08

ichengzi

31

Scp the current dir `.` to another name

3 Answers3