Bash / ssh / scp quoting problem...

[Colin Watson]

On Thu, Feb 11, 2021 at 09:23:04AM -0500, Robert Heller wrote:
> I have a script to convert document files.  I have the conversion software on 
> one machine but sometimes have the files on another.  Sometimes the filenames 
> have pesky shell meta characters (dreaded spaces -- thank you Steve Jobs).
> 
> I have a bash script that uses scp and ssh to do the work:
> 
> #!/bin/bash -v
> scp "$1" sauron:/extra/
> base=`basename "$1"`
> broot=`basename "$base" .doc`
> if [ "$broot" = "$base" ]; then
>   broot=`basename "$base" .docx`
> fi 
> ssh -X -Y sauron /usr/bin/doc2pdf -v "\"/extra/$base\""
> f1="/extra/${broot}"
> ssh sauron ls -l "\"$f1\".*"
> scp sauron:"\"$f1\".pdf" /scratch/
> 
> The problem is the last line. I cannot figure out how to quote it properly.  

This is all relatively awful because *gestures wildly at history of scp
and shells*.  Consider using sftp or rsync instead of scp if you can.
Failing that, what you have should work if you add the -T option to scp
(which disables some checking on what the remote host is sending over
the scp protocol, implying a somewhat higher level of trust in the
remote host not to send certain kinds of maliciously-constructed file
names).

-- 
Colin Watson (he/him)                              [cjwatson at ubuntu.com]