## page was renamed from AJMGrpOnly/teaching/electronic-structure/useful_stuff
## page was renamed from ajm/teaching/electronic-structure/useful_stuff

<<TableOfContents()>>

= Useful Stuff =

= Copying data to and from Comanche using ''rsync'' =
You will often want to copy data to and from comanche:
  * It may be easier to create directories and files on your laptop,
  * plots cannot be easily made on Comanche as it lacks any graphics libraries,
  * or, you just want to keep data for your own record.

The best command to move data securely from a Linux machine is ''rsync''. To see how to use it, use
{{{
  $ man rsync
or
  $ info rsync
}}}
This will work for those of you using Linux/Unix/OSX and probably also for those of you using mobaxterm.

Use ''rsync'' as follows
{{{
  $ ls
  prac1     prac2     prac3
}}}
This means I have these three directories. Say I want to copy the data from prac2 to my own laptop. To do this I use:
{{{
  $ rsync -avz prac2 alston@mylaptop.qmul.ac.uk:~/ESM/lab/
}}}
Let's look at this in detail:
  * The options ''-avz'' are quite useful. I use them all the time. See ''man rsync'' for details.
  * ''prac2'' is the name of the directory I wish to copy.
  * ''alston@mylaptop.qmul.ac.uk'' is the full address of my laptop and must include my username.
  * Specify the directory in which prac2 is to be put using '':~/ESM/lab/'' (the colon is essential!) What this means is that ''prac2'' should be placed in ''/home/alston/ESM/lab/''. I used ''~'' as a shortcut for ''/home/alston/''

You will be prompted for your password before the copy progresses.

{{{#!wiki  note
Note

When copying files, keep in mind that ''poset'' has the same home file system as ''comanche'' so you can just as well copy files to and from poset. 
}}}

{{{#!wiki  important
Important
What if you want to copy the contents of a directory and all sub-directories?

Then use:
  $ rsync -r -avz prac2 alston@mylaptop....
The only addition is the ''-r'' which forces rsync to act recursively on ''prac2'' and it then copies all the contents of ''prac2'', including files and sub-directories.
}}}

{{{#!wiki  important
Important
To force rsync to skip files you do not want use
  $ rsync -r -avz --exclude '*.b' prac2 alston@mylaptop....
This will exclude all files that end in ''.b''.

If you have a long list of files you'd like to exclude then create a file called ''.rsyncx'' in your home directory and put the list of patterns in it like so:
  $ cd
  $ more .rsyncx
  *.b
  *.c
  *.db
Here, files ending in .b, .c and .db will be skipped.
}}}