openssh unix dev - Aug 2004 - scp does a local copy when ommiting :

Hi,

I run into this quiet often:

If you forget to add the : after the hostname you want to copy a file
to, then scp does a simple local copy. This is quiet confusing if you
dont notice it:

"scp foo.txt server.bar.com:" (copies the file to remote homedir)
"scp foo.txt server.bar.com" (creates the new file server.bar.com)

I don't know if this behaviour is intended or even needed, but if not I
would be glad if this could be fixed to prevent some mistakes.

Thanks

Christian Gut
-- 
Christian Gut <cycloon at is-root.org>
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Christian Gut wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I run into this quiet often:
> 
> If you forget to add the : after the hostname you want to copy a file
> to, then scp does a simple local copy. This is quiet confusing if you
> dont notice it:
> 
> "scp foo.txt server.bar.com:" (copies the file to remote homedir)
> "scp foo.txt server.bar.com" (creates the new file
server.bar.com)
> 
> I don't know if this behaviour is intended or even needed, but if not I
> would be glad if this could be fixed to prevent some mistakes.
This would be a major change to scp's argument parsing - something we
don't want to do. I'm sure that there are scripts out there that depend
on this behaviour (which derives from 20+ year old rcp).

-d