Transferring files via tar and a compressed ssh tunnel.

I was confronted with an old AIX computer with a bad network card, and had to secure 60 GB data located on a SCSI disk. We did not have any available SCSI controller, so we could not dismount the disk from the AIX machine. The machine did not have any USB ports either, so the only way to secure the disk was via network.

However, the network card frequently stalled and provided transmission rates of only max. 30-40 kB/second. Copying data by scp via ssh would be way too slow. Initial attempts indicated that the file transfer could take several weeks.

Rsync could be an option, but it was not installed on the AIX machine. Installing rsync was not considered, because no one really dared to touch the AIX machine with root rights.

The solution was to pipe the data via a compressed ssh tunnel. Most data on the AIX machine were CT scans, which can provide a significant compression ratio.
The command line is slightly cryptic though: (it is a one-liner, ignore the line wrapping)


tar cvf - /tp_data | gzip -9c | ssh root@gorm 'cd /target_dir; gunzip - | tar xpf -'


which will place the /tp_data directory inside the /target directory on the gorm computer, running linux.

Result: all data were transferred in less than a week.