sudo bang bang

I recently moved my portfolio from my old UC Irvine server to my new one at www.jaytolentino.com, and so ran into copying my local files to a remote host. I've had to use these commands several times whenever I'm moving things around, so I thought it would be fitting to have it on my blog. Plus, I'll tag this and any similar future posts with Linux Cheat Sheet for any commands I want to remember.

Anyways, there are two commands one can use to move files over, and the one you choose depends on what you're copying.

Secure Copy command: scp usage: to copy one or multiple files securely over a network syntax:   scp [OPTIONS] /path/to/source user@host:/path/to/destination useful options:   -r, --recursive (recursively copies directories) scp Example: copying everything in my current directory to my remote host's public directory:   scp -r . [email protected]:~/public_html/

Rsync command: rsync usage: allows copying of only modified or new files syntax:   rsync [OPTIONS] /path/to/source user@host:/path/to/destination useful options:   -r, --recursive (recursively copies directories)   -u, --update (only copy new files or updated files)   --delete (deletes remote files that don't exist in source directory) rsync Example: copying everything in my current directory to my remote host's public directory:   rsync -ru --delete . [email protected]:~/public_html/

So the story goes that, after making my initial move from local to remote, I ended up changing some files. But if I kept using scp, then every file would be recopied to the remote host, even ones I didn't change. As the number of files grew, so did the time it took to transfer things over. After a quick search, I discovered rsync solved this problem for me.

Another problem I ran into with scp is that I couldn't "copy over" files that I deleted. I would then go into my remote host and manually delete them from there. But! rsync solves that problem when you include that handy --delete flag.

Securing rsync I'm sure you're wondering "Well, is rsync secure?" Answer: if you use it in conjunction with SSH, then yes. For more on SSH and rsync you can check out "Securing automated rysync over SSH"[1]. And if you want to combine this with cron jobs (which is a tool for automating jobs based on some schedule, e.g. copying files to a remote host at 5AM daily), you can check out "Using Rsync and SSH: Keys, Validating, and Automation" [3].

Alright, so here's the breakdown... Use scp when:

copying individual files

copying individual or multiple files once

you want no-fuss security

Use rsync when:

copying only modified or new files

deleting files on remote that were deleted locally

doing automated jobs, but as long as you secure it with SSH

Lastly, if you're really curious about how SCP works behind-the-scenes, take a look at "How the SCP protocol works" by Jan Pechanec. Thanks and hoped this helped you guys as much as it helped me!

Notes: There also exists the rcp command which functions similarly to scp. However, as you might realize from the name, scp secures files transferred over the network using encryption since it's based on the ssh protocol. See [2]

Because Facebook truncated my post on my timeline event -_- I'm posting the same here:

On my last day as an undergrad and my first as an anteater alum, I did the unthinkable - climbed the arts school fountain. LOL on my bucket list since those days long past when I was a first year art major haha. Thanks UCI for everything, and thanks to everyone I met along the way.

I started college unsure of myself, worried about what others thought of me and coloring only inside the lines. I told myself I can only measure my college success by the job I can secure before graduating, and here I am jobless. But I'm not scared. I left UC Irvine with something much more valuable - the wholehearted belief that I can achieve whatever goals I set for myself.

To all my graduating anteaters who are leaving college afraid of the job market, worried about starting at the bottom again, regretful of your past mistakes: let's move forward with confidence instead of fear.

Let's speak with genuine self respect, know that what we say is worth hearing. Let's aim high with the belief that we are worth the effort and hard work to make our individual difference in the world. Let’s act in full spite of the glass ceilings and doubts of those we will encounter.

Because my honors thesis is about software maintenance and rebuilding software infrastructure, I've been thinking a lot about "infrastructural debt" accrued by companies that build quick prototypes and then need to scale. Right now, there's a lot of attention shining on "hacky" and "scrappy" programmers, which makes sense: why waste resources on a product that won't catch on?

Hence, I understand the emergence of the hackathon - you get x number of hours to throw together an idea, then pitch it to venture capitalists and see if it's really worth it. Awesome. But then what?

I had a random pondering today about the future of these scrappy prototypes made during hackathons: where do they go? Maybe there's a good idea in there that never gets fully developed because it didn't make the top 3 in a competition.

I muse that in the future, software engineering as a craft will return, and maybe we'll hold competitions to add infrastructural support to flailing software systems: the fixathon (maybe a more brilliant little programmer will come along with a better name than that haha). Anyways, rather than muddling our industry with scrappy prototype after scrappy prototype, we can move into the art of creating sustainable systems and giving these product real life to them. Maybe that's the future of technology.

Discovered ACM Queue, the ACM magazine for practicing software engineers, while looking for places to submit writing pieces to for my honors research. LOVED IT. Already "queueing up" some articles (haha get it?! ...it's okay, no need to laugh). First two on my list:

You Don't Know Jack About Software Maintenance by Paul Stachour and David Collier-Brown

I was reading today about the GitHub investigation and Tom Preston-Werner's resignation and it got me thinking about the state of the industry.

Working on a coding challenge right now in PHP and I'm exercising my OOP ("Object Oriented Programming") skills! This tutorial is helpful with understanding OOP practices in PHP lingo:

...to take care of myself, too, as I keep learning to program.

Haha yes I did change the colors of my theme. They're based off the syntax highlighting from GitHub, which I really like.

Here's a little cheatsheet of the hex codes I used if you're wondering:

BLUE #445588

TEAL #009999