SUMMARY: Running 'rcp'

Renato Huliganga (renato@bhl.com.au)
Fri, 05 Dec 1997 10:40:57 +1100

It is great - the solution has been found.
Thanks to all of you.
Mr. Lucio Chiappetti (lucio@ifctr.mi.cnr.it) deserves a special mention though - he hit the nail right on the head.

The others who helped:

David Stern [dave@davka.gsfc.nasa.gov]
Pitcher, Glenn [gpitcher@comstream.com]
valeix Arnaud [arnaud.valeix@sncf.fr]
Claude Charest [charest@chou.CANR.Hydro.Qc.Ca]
Tim Hespe [t.hespe@unsw.edu.au]
Dr. Tom Blinn, 603-884-0646 [tpb@zk3.dec.com]
Peter Stern [peter@wiscpa.weizmann.ac.il]
nesrin_ozus@karmaint.com.tr
Arora, Samir [sarora@ELDEC.com]
Kevin Sheehan {Consulting Poster Child} [Kevin.Sheehan@uniq.com.au]
Pam Woods, Systems Manager [axsymgr@UAA.ALASKA.EDU]
Martin Mokrejs [mmokrejs@mail.natur.cuni.cz]
Glenn Newbery [glenn@bnd.com.au]

The original (amended) posting:

I have been trying to copy files (using rcp) between an ALPHA and a SUNSPARC - I'm not having any success at all, although I have followed what is suggested in the 'man pages' of both machines.

The machines and O/S's are:
ALPHA - Digital Unix V4.0B (rev 564)
SUNSPARC - Solaris 2.4 (SUNOS 5.4)

I think I have made all the required configuration changes on both machines. (eg. /etc/hosts.equiv, $home/.rhosts) as suggested by the 'man pages' of both machines.

The error message's are:

'Permission denied'. (run 'rcp' at the SUNSPARC, source machine ALPHA, destination machine SUNSPARC)

'stty: : Invalid argument' (run 'rcp' at the ALPHA, source machine SUNSPARC, destination machine ALPHA)

The solution:
- As documented in the 'man pages' the machines (and users on machines) must know each other via the '/etc/hosts.equiv' and '$home/.rhosts' files.

- The 'rcp' command (or similar commands like 'rsh') also runs '$home/.cshrc', and, 'rcp' fails if there interactive commands (like 'stty') in this file - such commands should be removed before running 'rcp'. Or use conditionals such as: ' if ($USER == 0 || $?prompt == 0) exit '. There is actually a '.cshrc' RESTRICTION in the 'man pages' for 'rcp', ie.:

The rcp command is confused by output generated by commands in a .cshrc
file on the remote host. In particular, the messages, where are you? and
stty: Can't assign requested address can result if output is generated by
the startup file.

- The error messages: the message from the ALPHA should have given me the clue, the message from the SUNSPARC is a misleading one.

Thanks
RJH