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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 mutiple 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)