Remote file copy command

The GPFS commands must maintain several configuration files across all nodes in the cluster. To achieve this, the GPFS commands use the remote file copy command that you specify on the mmcrcluster command or the mmchcluster command.

The default remote file copy program is scp. You can designate the use of a different remote file copy command by specifying its fully qualified path name on the mmcrcluster command or the mmchcluster command. The remote file copy command must adhere to the same syntax as scp, but it can implement an alternate authentication mechanism.

Clusters that include both UNIX and Windows nodes must use scp for the remote copy command. For more information, see Installing and configuring OpenSSH on Windows nodes.

The file copy command rcp cannot be used in a cluster that contains Windows Server nodes. However, clusters that include only Windows nodes might use the mmwinrcp utility that comes with GPFS. The fully qualified path name is /usr/lpp/mmfs/bin/mmwinrcp. For more information about configuring Windows GPFS clusters, see mmwinservctl command.

The nodes that you plan to use for administering GPFS must be able to copy files by using the remote file copy command to and from any other node in the cluster without the use of a password and without producing any extraneous messages.

For additional information, see Requirements for administering a GPFS file system.