Bash / ssh / scp quoting problem...

[Chris Green]

On Thu, Feb 11, 2021 at 06:04:28PM +0000, Colin Watson wrote:
> 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).
> 
I second that advice, use rsync if you possibly can, it can handle
files with awkward names much better than scp.

-- 
Chris Green