How do you fire a sequence of commands at the command tool?

Question

I had a previous question (deleted it) and I still don't understand why it is so hard to understand what I'm trying to ask, but I'll try once again and more clearly.

So I'm copying over several folders over from server A to server B, but the command for each copy process ('rsync') has to be executed from the command line, once for each folder.

So, to copy folder A to server X, I execute a rsync command and once it's done copying, I execute a new rsync command to copy over folder B to server X.

I've did a little research, that probably helps you answer my needs. But I'm looking for a way to write multiple commands at once, that fires one after another if the previous one is finished with his actions (thus finished copying).

Usually, multiple commands are separated on one line by ; semicolons or && ampersands. The difference between is that if the first/previous command fails with semicolons, it still continues. If the command produces an error and you had used ampersands, than it will stop.

Thus, I used semicolons in my process and let my computer going on overnight.. but it only executed the first command, even though I written several on one line separated with semicolons. So It should have executed all of them, one by one... So first: How do I correctly execute multiple commands and B, what is wrong with my command?

sudo rsync -v -v -r -h -t —progress /Volumes/My\ Book/Backups.backupdb/MbpScs-van-iSCS/2014-01-02-233653/SSDaeffer /Volumes/BackupMyBook/ViaMacbookMove/DitIsDeMap ; 
sudo rsync -v -v -r -h -t —progress /Volumes/My\ Book/Backups.backupdb/MbpScs-van-iSCS/2014-01-09-152837/SSDaeffer /Volumes/BackupMyBook/ViaMacbookMove/DitIsDeMap ;
sudo rsync -v -v -r -h -t —progress /Volumes/My\ Book/Backups.backupdb/MbpScs-van-iSCS/2014-01-20-201229/SSDaeffer /Volumes/BackupMyBook/ViaMacbookMove/DitIsDeMap ;
sudo rsync -v -v -r -h -t —progress /Volumes/My\ Book/Backups.backupdb/MbpScs-van-iSCS/2014-02-21-130931/SSDaeffer /Volumes/BackupMyBook/ViaMacbookMove/DitIsDeMap ;
sudo rsync -v -v -r -h -t —progress /Volumes/My\ Book/Backups.backupdb/MbpScs-van-iSCS/2014-03-05-113353/SSDaeffer /Volumes/BackupMyBook/ViaMacbookMove/DitIsDeMap ;
sudo rsync -v -v -r -h -t —progress /Volumes/My\ Book/Backups.backupdb/MbpScs-van-iSCS/2014-03-19-162703/SSDaeffer /Volumes/BackupMyBook/ViaMacbookMove/DitIsDeMap ;
sudo rsync -v -v -r -h -t —progress /Volumes/My\ Book/Backups.backupdb/MbpScs-van-iSCS/2014-05-13-215016/SSDaeffer /Volumes/BackupMyBook/ViaMacbookMove/DitIsDeMap ;
sudo rsync -v -v -r -h -t —progress /Volumes/My\ Book/Backups.backupdb/MbpScs-van-iSCS/2014-06-01-231321/SSDaeffer /Volumes/BackupMyBook/ViaMacbookMove/DitIsDeMap

I separated them with breaks here for readability purposes. Normally it's one whole line

This usually goes by with a ; semicolon character

Answer 1

For repeatability I suggest to put the lines into a small script, but without the keyword sudo:

#!/bin/bash

rsync -v -v -r -h -t --progress /Volumes/My\ Book/Backups.backupdb/MbpScs-van-iSCS/2014-01-02-233653/SSDaeffer /Volumes/BackupMyBook/ViaMacbookMove/DitIsDeMap  
rsync -v -v -r -h -t --progress /Volumes/My\ Book/Backups.backupdb/MbpScs-van-iSCS/2014-01-09-152837/SSDaeffer /Volumes/BackupMyBook/ViaMacbookMove/DitIsDeMap 
rsync -v -v -r -h -t --progress /Volumes/My\ Book/Backups.backupdb/MbpScs-van-iSCS/2014-01-20-201229/SSDaeffer /Volumes/BackupMyBook/ViaMacbookMove/DitIsDeMap 
rsync -v -v -r -h -t --progress /Volumes/My\ Book/Backups.backupdb/MbpScs-van-iSCS/2014-02-21-130931/SSDaeffer /Volumes/BackupMyBook/ViaMacbookMove/DitIsDeMap 
rsync -v -v -r -h -t --progress /Volumes/My\ Book/Backups.backupdb/MbpScs-van-iSCS/2014-03-05-113353/SSDaeffer /Volumes/BackupMyBook/ViaMacbookMove/DitIsDeMap 
rsync -v -v -r -h -t --progress /Volumes/My\ Book/Backups.backupdb/MbpScs-van-iSCS/2014-03-19-162703/SSDaeffer /Volumes/BackupMyBook/ViaMacbookMove/DitIsDeMap 
rsync -v -v -r -h -t --progress /Volumes/My\ Book/Backups.backupdb/MbpScs-van-iSCS/2014-05-13-215016/SSDaeffer /Volumes/BackupMyBook/ViaMacbookMove/DitIsDeMap 
rsync -v -v -r -h -t --progress /Volumes/My\ Book/Backups.backupdb/MbpScs-van-iSCS/2014-06-01-231321/SSDaeffer /Volumes/BackupMyBook/ViaMacbookMove/DitIsDeMap

To run the series of commands, type:

chmod +x myscript.sh
sudo ./myscript.sh

This way, sudo is not timing out during a long command. There is no need for a semicolon in a script file. By default, each line may fail and the next is executed (to change this, use set -o errexit).

I also noticed something fishy in your commands. for the option --progress you didn't use a regular hyphen, but some other, similar looking character. This could be another source of the errors you're seeing.

Answer 2

Note the usage for rsync is rsync [OPTION]... SRC [SRC]... DEST which means this can be more simply written as

 rsync -r -t -h /src1dir /src2 /src3 /destdir

which isn't subject to sudo session timeouts. You didn't ask, but the option -a is far more comprehensive than -r -t.

Answer 3

There are many ways of doing this. The approach you tried would have worked perfectly if each sudo did not require you to enter a password. Since it does, the commands would hang since the 2nd would ask for a password and you weren't there to give it. Therefore, you need a way of running everything with a single sudo call. Here are a few ways of doing this.

1. Write the commands in a script and run the script with sudo as explained in @Sebastian's answer.

2. Run a single rsync giving multiple source folders as suggested by @msw.

3. Build the commands dynamically. It looks like you want to copy all SSDaeffer folders to /Volumes/BackupMyBook/ViaMacbookMove/DitIsDeMap. This means you could simply write

   sudo rsync -vah /Volumes/My\ Book/Backups.backupdb/MbpScs-van-iSCS/*/SSDaeffer \
                   /Volumes/BackupMyBook/ViaMacbookMove/DitIsDeMap  
   

   That will copy all SSDaeffer folders that are sub-folders of a directory in /Volumes/My\ Book/Backups.backupdb/MbpScs-van-iSCS to /Volumes/BackupMyBook/ViaMacbookMove/DitIsDeMap. This assumes that you want all the SSDaeffer folders there. If you only want some of them, you could list them in a file:

   $ cat file
   2014-01-02-233653
   2014-01-09-152837
   2014-01-20-201229
   2014-02-21-130931
   

   Then read the file to get the names you want:

   sudo while read dir; do 
    rsync -vah /Volumes/My\ Book/Backups.backupdb/MbpScs-van-iSCS/$dir/SSDaeffer \
               /Volumes/BackupMyBook/ViaMacbookMove/DitIsDeMap;
   done < file
   

   If your folder names can contain whitespace or other strange characters, use this instead:

   while IFS= read -r dir; do 
    rsync -vah /Volumes/My\ Book/Backups.backupdb/MbpScs-van-iSCS/$dir/SSDaeffer \
                   /Volumes/BackupMyBook/ViaMacbookMove/DitIsDeMap;
   done < file
   

4. Start a root shell with sudo -i. This will let you login as the superuser and then you can run commands to your heart's content:

   $ sudo -i
   Password:
   # rsync -avh /from/dir1 /to/dir
   # rsync -avh /from/dir2 /to/dir
   # rsync -avh /from/dir3 /to/dir