NAME

       dncopy - Copy files to/from a VMS system

SYNOPSIS

       dncopy [options] source dest
       dncopy [options] source... directory
       dntype source...
       Options:
       [-vdisklEVh] [-m mode] [-a record attributes] [-r record format] [-b block size] [-p VMS protection]

DESCRIPTION

       dncopy copies files to and from VMS systems.

       Files  on  VMS  systems  should  be  specified  in  the  usual transparent DECnet format of node"username
       password"::[directory]file. To protect quotes and dollar signs from shell expansion I recommend that  all
       VMS  file specifications be enclosed in single quotes (see EXAMPLES below). If you don't want to type the
       password on the command-line then put a hyphen ("-") in its place and you will be prompted for it.

       dncopy can copy single files and multiple files. If multiple files are copied the destination must  be  a
       directory  but  it  may  be  on  the  local Linux system or a VMS system. The files to be copied can be a
       mixture of VMS files and local files (yes, you can copy from VMS to VMS with this program,  though  quite
       why you would want to I'm not sure)

       Wildcards  are  supported  for local and VMS files (of course local wildcards are expanded by the shell).
       Remember to use VMS wildcards (*%) on VMS filesystems and Unix wildcards (*? etc) on Unix files.

       The pseudo-filename '-' may be used to represent standard input or standard output to enable dncopy to be
       used in a pipeline.  Filenames are changed to lower case when copied from VMS to Linux.

       The environment DNCOPY_OPTIONS may be used to provide a default set of options for copying files. If (for
       example)  you  wanted  to  normally  send  files  as  blocks  rather   than   records   you   could   set
       DNCOPY_OPTIONS="-mblock".   Then,  to  send  a  file  as  records  you would need to type dncopy -mrecord
       myfile.txt vmsbox:: instead.
       Options in DNCOPY_OPTIONS may be overridden by options typed on the command-line except where there is no
       negating option available (see -k -d -i ). If you put these options in DNCOPY_OPTIONS then to remove them
       you will have to override the whole environment variable eg:
       $ DNCOPY_OPTIONS="" dncopy myfile.txt vmsbox::

       dntype is simply a version of dncopy where the output file is forced to "-". Thus it takes all  the  same
       options as dncopy. It is merely a convenience.

OPTIONS

       -v     Verbose  operation. The more -v options are present the more verbose dncopy will become. One -v is
              roughly equivalent to the /LOG qualifier on the DCL copy command. More than  one  is  really  just
              useful for debugging.

       -i     Interactive  operation.  Prompts  before  copying a file. This option is roughly equivalent to the
              /CONFIRM qualifier on the DCL copy command.

       -l     Ignore interlocks on files copied from VMS. This will do its best to read the data  regardless  of
              record or file locking, but it won't always succeed.

       -s     Show  transfer  statistics.  This  shows  the  throughput  of  all copies (in the case of wildcard
              transfers) undertaken in K bytes/second.  This  time  does  not  include  that  to  establish  the
              connection. eg when sending to VMS the overhead of creating a NETSERVER process is not included.

       -k     Keep  version  numbers  on files copied from VMS systems. By default dncopy will strip the version
              number from files because they have no meaning in Linux.  if you specify -k on  the  command  line
              then  the  VMS  file  will  be  created with exactly the same name as it had on the VMS system. To
              access these files under Linux you will need to enclose them in quotes. eg less "vmsfile.txt;1".

       -m {record|block}
              Sets the transfer mode to block or record.  record is the default. Normally  record  is  what  you
              want but block is used for sending binary files to the VMS system. Note that if you use -mblock to
              pull files from VMS you may not be able to make sense of the file on  Linux  because  dncopy  will
              also pull all the VMS internal structuring of the file as well as the data. Unless you really know
              what you are doing -mblock is only really useful for sending files.

       -a {none|ftn|cr|prn}
              Sets the carriage control attributes for files copied to a VMS system. The default is cr.

       -r {fix|var|vfc|stm}
              Sets the record format for files copied to a VMS system. The default is stm.  In fact the  default
              is  STREAMLF as this corresponds to the format of files on Unix systems and so is the least likely
              to result in file corruption.  If you are sending a pure text file then var or  vfc  may  be  more
              appropriate for your application.  fix may be useful for block-structures files and data files.

       -b N   Set  the  block size for transfers. The default is high enough for all record structured files. if
              you are sending a file with -mblock then you should use this to set the block size of the file  to
              be  created  at  the  VMS  end.  When  sending  block  files the default changes to 512 as this is
              typically what you would want (I hope).

       -d     Remove any trailing CR characters at the end of a line. This is useful for sending  DOS  files  to
              VMS. Only works when transferring in record mode.

       -p 'protection'
              When  sending  files  to  VMS, sets the protection of the newly created remote file.  Without this
              option, VMS will set the protection to be the default for the remote user.  The protection  should
              be in VMS-style format and enclosed in single quotes to protect it from the shell (see example).
              This option is ignored when copying from VMS.

       -P     Queue the file for printing to SYS$PRINT when it arrives at the VMS end.

       -D     Delete the file when it is closed. This is only really useful in conjunction with -P.

       -T connect timeout
              Specifies  the  maximum  amount  of  time the command will wait to establish a connection with the
              remote node. a 0 here will cause it to wait forever. The default is 60 seconds

       -E     Ignore errors opening output files. This is handy if you are sending a lot of Unix files  to  VMS,
              some  of  which  have illegal filenames (eg ~ backup files).  dncopy will report an error for each
              file but continue sending.

       -h -?  Displays help for using the command.

       -V     Show the version of the tools package that dncopy comes from.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLE

       You can put your most commonly used defaults in the environment variable DNCOPY_OPTIONS eg:

       bash or ksh:
       $ DNCOPY_OPTIONS="-mblock -anone -b1024" ; export DNCOPY_OPTIONS

       csh or tcsh:
       $ setenv DNCOPY_OPTIONS "-mblock -anone -b1024"

       makes dncopy send files as 1024 byte blocks with no carriage control. You can override these  options  by
       specifying replacements on the command-line as usual.  Be aware that some options have no converse (eg -i
       -k -d -v) so if you put these in DNCOPY_OPTIONS you cannot disable them without deassigning the variable.

EXAMPLES

       Copy LOGIN.COM from the VMS system "tramp" to Linux as mylogin.com

           dncopy 'tramp"christine pjc123"::login.com' mylogin.com

       Copy all .TXT files from the VMS directory SYS$SYSDEVICE:[WP] to /tmp:

           dncopy 'tramp"christine pjc123"::sys$sysdevice:[wp]*.txt' /tmp

       Copy an executable to VMS:

           dncopy -mblock test.exe 'tramp"christine pjc123"::[.BIN]'

       Copy a file to VMS and set its protection

           dncopy secret.dat  marsha:: -p (s:, o:rwed, g:re, w:)'

       Display the contents of LOGIN.COM:

           dtype 'trisha"christine -"::login.com'
           You will then be prompted for a password

HELPFUL HINTS

       For fetching files the defaults should serve for most purposes. Most VMS files are record orientated  and
       -mrecord  is the default transfer mode. It is rare you will need to fetch files using -mblock because you
       will get all the record control information downloaded too and that probably isn't any use to you.

       Sending files is more complex because VMS supports far more attributes than Linux so  you  will  need  to
       know  something about the file you are sending. Text files should be OK with the defaults unless you need
       to change the format from the default STREAMLF to VFC or VAR.  Carriage control can also be specified  if
       you want to be that picky.

       Binary  files  may  often  need to be sent -mblock to be useful at the VMS end, You will probably want to
       specify a block size with the -b option. The default is 512 which is fairly useful but if you are sending
       (say)  a  saveset 8192 or 32256 may be required. Trial-and-error may be the only way in some cases unless
       you know the file contents very well.  If you really don't know what to do, just send it -mblock and  use
       the set file/attr command to massage it on the VMS end until you are happy with it. (If you are using VMS
       earlier than 6.1 then you will need the freeware FILE utility to do this)

SEE ALSO

       dntype(1), dndir(1), dndel(1), dntask(1), dnsubmit(1), dnprint(1)