trying to run a simple command...

from the directory /home/dime3/public_html/vox

cp admin /home/dime3/public_html/vtec/mrdd

returns the error

cp: omitting directory `admin/'

any idea how I can fix it?

fixed. used cp -r

and it worked.

or "cp -a", which copy the ownership and permissions too.

Ok so I updated some files in my original source directory and now want to update my main directory.

So I figured I could just copy overwriting the old files choosing to automatically overwrite.

its not working though.

tried

cp -R -f admin /home/dime3/public_html/vtec/mrdd
also tried

cp -f -R admin /home/dime3/public_html/vtec/mrdd
and

cp -R --force admin /home/dime3/public_html/vtec/mrdd
But I am still getting prompts to overwrite ! ! ! ! I have almost 10,000 files in that folder. I cant really sit here pressing Y then Enter.

any ideas why this isn't working?

probably because the files in that directory are tied to another user than the one of your session.

It often is the case if you have handled those files via FTP.
The ftp user is not the same than the shell user.

Check that, with a "ls -lah" on the files in that folder, and the result if "id".
"id" will give you the username and id and the main group name and id of your user.
"ls -lah" will show you the name and group of the files.

For example:

tmo@NAS:~$ id
uid=1000(tmo) gid=407(webdev) groups=7(lp),9(kmem),10(wheel),18(audio),19(cdrom),27(video),35(games),70(postgres),80(cdrw),85(usb),100(users),407(webdev),1004(plugdev),1010(vboxusers),1011(scanner),1013(uinput),1014(tuntap),1022(realtime),1023(pulse-access),1024(pulse),1029(svnusers)

This tells me that I am logged with the user "tmo", and the main group is "webdev"

and this:

tmo@NAS:~$ ls -lah
-rwxr-xr-x 1 apache webdev 281 Jul 31  2008 stopVnc.sh

tells that the file stopVnc is owned by the user "apache", in the same ggroup as me.

If the user and/or group are different, and that the user or group permission don't give you write permissions to the file, you will have this prompt.

So, if you are sure of yourself, as this could means "no more ftp working", you can change the owner of the files in your directory with:

chown -R myUser:myGroup theDirectory

After that, you should not have any prompt.

Hi,
I am root on the server. Logged in as root.
it is a cpanel account 'dime'

I don't know what my user or group would be.

presumable root, but no idea

would it be:

47 chown -R dime.dime *
48 chown dime.nobody admin
52 /scripts/mailperm dime

because that didnt work?

I don't know what my user or group would be.

For that, you type the command "id" from the console, as stated previously.

And it would be:

chown -R yourUsername:yourGroup /home/dime3/public_html/vtec/mrdd
cp -r admin /home/dime3/public_html/vtec/mrdd
chown -R previousFilesUser:previousFilesGroup /home/dime3/public_html/vtec/mrdd

But I don't think you are logged as root, because the root user have every rights to do everything everywhere (usually).
So, a root user doing a copy will have priority over the user/group permissions of a file.

Last login: Fri Feb 5 16:43:58 2010 from <my ip>
root@server [~]# id
uid=0(root) gid=0(root) groups=0(root),1(bin),2(daemon),3(sys),4(adm),6(di sk),10
(wheel)
root@server [~]# chown -R root:root admin

I also tried doing the chown -r root:root admin in the new directory and the source directory.

Tried again with CP and it yet again asked me confirm overwriting when I ran
the cp -r -f admin /home/dime...

submitted a cpanel help request.

fixed by cpanel help and support by using command

unalias cp

apparently alias is a bad config or something and should be undone on most systems as it doesn't do much.

Hmmm, god knows what they did with the alias.

Alias, as you could guess, allows you to create an alias from a command.
For example, "alias grep='grep --colour=auto'" means that when you type "grep", it's in fact "grep --colour=auto" that is called.

Strange that they have remapped them.

well I have cpanel setup to latest stable build (this is not standard, standard is the next one).

The guy emailed back to my problem with

Howdy,

This is usually an alias setup, which I have found commonly set as default on many systems.

root@server [~]# alias | grep cp\ -i
alias cp='cp -i'

You can remove this with 'unalias cp'

Best Regards,

any idea what his reply means?

He tells you that there is often an alias of cp as "cp -i" defined. the -i meaning "interactive", which is what you have. You must confirm every operations.

type "alias" in a shell, and look for an "cp= something" line
if it exists, type "unalias cp" and try again.

Otherwise, don't know.