pscp — copy a file to multiple nodes in parallel.
pscp [ -p? ] [ -h hostlist
| -n nodelist
] [ -i filename ] [ -o filename ] [ -I command ] [ -O command ] [ -m num ] [ -s server ] [ -l port ] [ --maxsize size ] [ --tokens num ] [ --lowtokens num ] [ -v level ]
pscp [ -V ]
The pscp command is designed to copy files to many nodes in real parallelism. The implemented strategy ensures scalability up to hundreds of nodes for arbitrary file sizes.
Beside copying a single file to all destination hosts, the pscp command may generate and unpack on-the-fly archives to copy a set of files at once. Data compression could also be enabled by defining proper compress/uncompress commands.
-h,
--hosts
hostlist
List of hosts to copy the file(s) to.
-n,
--nodes
nodelist
List of node ids to copy the file(s) to.
-i,
--input
filename
Filename to be sent to remote nodes.
-o,
--output
filename
Filename stored on the remote nodes.
In case of the option -i is given, this
option must be given, too, even if input and output file
are the same.
-I,
--icmd
command
Command to pack a file or list of files to be transmitted.
The file or list of files to be transmitted must be part
of command, see examples below.
The command must send its output to stdout.
-O,
--ocmd
command
Command to unpack a file or list of files received.
-C,
--cp
files
Create and unpack a tar-file on-the-fly including sub-directories.
This is a short hand for -I "/bin/tar
cvPf - .
files" -O "/bin/tar xPf -"
-m,
--manual
num
Manually start up num clients.
Only for debugging purposes.
-s,
--server
server
Server to connect to for clients started using
-m option.
-l,
--lport
port
Port number to connect to for clients started using
-m option.
-p,
--progress
Show progress information.
--maxsize
size
Size of chunks to send or receive at once.
--tokens
num
Number of tokens to use for flow control stop.
--lowtokens
num
Number of low tokens to use for flow control start.
-v,
--verbose
level
Be more verbose. Level could be
in the range from 0 to 3.
-V,
--version
Print pscp version and exit.
-?,
--help
Print usage and exit.
Hostlist and
nodelist may be comma separated lists
of host names or host id, respectively.
If neither hostlist nor
nodelist is given, the file will
be copied to all but the local host.
All files will be copied relatively to the current working
directory.
The options -i, -o and
-I, -O, -C
are mutually exclusive.
Pscp copies an input file or an input data stream to an output file or an output data stream on many nodes in parallel. Writing data to disk and forwarding data to the next node takes place in parallel.
Pscp uses the ParaStation MPI
psport library for data transfers,
that automatically will use the most effective communication
channel available.
If required, the communication layer may be controlled using
environment variables, refer to
ps_environment(7) for details.
The client process on each node is spawned using the ParaStation MPI
process management.
As pscp uses administrative ParaStation MPI tasks to
spawn the client processes, the user must be a member of the
adminuser list or the user's group must
be a member of the admingroup list. Refer
to ParaStation MPI User's Guide and
psiadmin(8) for details.
Copy the file /boot/vmlinuz to all other
cluster nodes:
pscp -i /boot/vmlinuz -o /boot/vmlinuz
To copy all files and directories within
/boot to hosts node5 up
to node9 and show the progress, enter
pscp -C /boot -h node5,node6,node7,node8,node9 -p
To send the file testfile2 to nodes
node01 to
node19 and compress/decompress it
on-the-fly, enter
pscp -h `seq -s , -f "node%02g" 10 19` -I \
"bzip2 -c testfile2" -O "bunzip2 > testfile2"The same will be accomplished using
pscp -n `seq -s , -f "node%02g" 10 19` -I \
"/bin/tar cvPfj - testfile2" -O "/bin/tar xPfj -"
The options -i and -O may be
combined to do things like
pscp -h node03,node17 -i myfiles.tar.gz -O "/bin/tar xPfz -"
This command will transfer the already existing compressed tar
file myfiles.tar.gz to nodes
node03 and node17 and
will decompress and unpack the archive on each node.