hi i am trying to get a bunch of zip files from a box to my box and using this command ssh myname@boxname "( cd /logs; tar cf - find -name \"*.Z\" )" | tar xf - this command should copy all the zip files from the remote boxname to the local directory while maintaining the same directory structure. but the above command is not working something is going wrong getting this error message tar: invalid option -- n Try `tar --help' for more information. but if i want to copy the directory structure it is working fine ssh myname@boxname "( cd /logs; tar cf - w* )" | tar xf - recursively copies all the directories starting with w* if you can let me know any other way of copying all *.Z files and maintaining the same directory structure on the local box thanks anil

tar cf - find -name \"*.Z\" looks erroneous perhaps tar cf - $(find -name \"*.Z\" )

sorry, should be tar cf - $(find . -name \"*.Z\" )

i tried the above step now find command in $(find . -name \"*.Z\") is listing all the *.Z files of the local box and not the remote box. what i have observerd is it is executing only one command on the remote box here on the above command we see that it starts tar cf - on the remote box and whatever is given in `... ` or $(... ) the quotes will be run on the local box not the remote box. the whole purpose is to get a bunch of *.Z files located in different directories from remote machine to local machine maintaining the same directory structure. thanks anil

try ssh myname@boxname 'cd /logs; tar cf - $(find . -name "*.Z")' |tar xf -

The above step works but it gives error "ksh: /bin/tar: Argument List too Long." when there are huge number of files is there any other work around. Need to get a set of *.Z files from one box to the other box maintaining the same directory structure.