Specifying File and Directory Names

This section covers the way you specify both local and remote file and directory names.

Specifying Local Names

Specify local file and directory names with the usual HP-UX syntax and conventions.

Specifying Remote Names

Remote file and directory names have three elements, as described in Table 3-2 “Name Elements”.

Table 3-2 Name Elements

Element

Description

user

The login name that will be used to access the remote host.

host

The name of the remote host. This can take one of three forms:

An alias, which is easiest and most common;
A directory distinguished name; or
A presentation address.

Because the second two are used infrequently, this guide does not examine them; refer to the online man pages for additional information.

name

The file or directory name. See "Notes About Remote File and Directory Names" following this section for important details.

These three elements are arranged in the following form:

user@host:name

Notice the punctuation between elements. This is an example of a legal file name:

betty@denver:memos/mymemo

The local host uses the login name betty to access the remote HP-UX host named denver. You are prompted to supply betty's password. The file name (memos/mymemo) accesses a file called mymemo in the memos subdirectory of betty's home (default) directory. Notice that this example file name uses normal HP-UX syntax; other vendors' responders require the native syntax and conventions of the host.

Notes About Remote File and Directory Names

Note the following important points about remote file names:

Directory names are legal only in fls and fcattr commands. Directory names are not legal as source or destination file names.
Wildcard characters are not legal. This applies to both source and destination.
For all FTAM commands, remote file names must be specified with the native syntax, notation, and conventions for the remote host. FTAM cannot translate or negotiate file names between different hosts, so any name you provide has to be valid on the system that uses it. This may require you to "escape" HP-UX metacharacters (like ">" ) if they appear in the remote file name. To "escape" a metacharacter, precede it with a backslash, or enclose the whole file (or directory) specification in quotation marks. Example: "fairbanks:rush>gold" or fairbanks:rush\>gold
All names are relative to the remote working directory, unless you provide an absolute pathname for a file or directory (in whatever way the remote system defines "absolute pathname").
The default remote directory for file transactions is determined by the FTAM implementation on the remote host. HP FTAM/9000 responders set the default directory to be the home directory for the user involved in the transaction. Other (non-HP-UX) FTAM implementations are apt to use different default directories.

Shortcut Remote Names

You can omit the user@ portion of a remote name if your ftam startup file contains an appropriate entry (see Chapter 4 “Special FTAM Files” for information about the ftam startup file).

For example, suppose you are logged in as betty on the local system, and issue an fcp command with denver:myplan as the remote target file name (rather than betty@denver:myplan):

$ fcp plan denver:myplan

This example command works under the following conditions:

Your .ftamrc startup file contains a valid entry for host denver, and user betty.
If that entry also contains a password, the fcp command executes the copy immediately.
If that entry does not contain a password, you are prompted to supply it; then fcp executes the copy.

In any case, the working directory on denver is determined by the remote FTAM implementation; HP-UX FTAM would use betty's home directory.

Specifying File and Directory Names

Technical documentation

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Specifying Local Names

Specifying Remote Names

Notes About Remote File and Directory Names

Shortcut Remote Names