scp "no such file" when the file exists?

Question

I'm trying to copy a folder from my local computer to a remote server, but it only seems to be catching half of the files within the folder. Here's my scp command:

scp read_tree [email protected]:~/Work/gmovie

and this is the output I get:

.DS_Store                                                    100% 6148     6.0KB/s   00:00    
read_tree/check_syscalls.c: No such file or directory
read_tree/check_syscalls.h: No such file or directory
example.c                                                    100%  204     0.2KB/s   00:00    
Makefile                                                     100%  438     0.4KB/s   00:00    
read_tree.c                                                  100% 9350     9.1KB/s   00:00    
read_tree.h                                                  100% 1176     1.2KB/s   00:00    
read_tree/stringparse.c: No such file or directory
read_tree/stringparse.h: No such file or directory
read_tree/strtonum.c: No such file or directory
zacc.c                                                       100%  885     0.9KB/s   00:00    

I also tried using scp directly for one file, and got the same result. Any ideas on where I'm going wrong?

**I'm working in terminal on my mac

**EDIT: ls -al for the read_tree directory:

total 112
drwxr-xr-x@  13 name  staff   442 Jul 11 10:42 .
drwx------+ 109 name  staff  3706 Jul 11 10:42 ..
-rw-r--r--@   1 name  staff  6148 Jul 11 11:16 .DS_Store
-rw-r--r--@   1 name  staff   438 Jul 11 09:58 Makefile
lrwxr-xr-x@   1 name  staff    23 Jul 11 09:58 check_syscalls.c -> ../src/check_syscalls.c
lrwxr-xr-x@   1 name  staff    23 Jul 11 09:58 check_syscalls.h -> ../src/check_syscalls.h
-rw-r--r--@   1 name  staff   204 Jul 11 09:58 example.c
-rw-r--r--@   1 name  staff  9350 Jul 11 09:58 read_tree.c
-rw-r--r--@   1 name  staff  1176 Jul 11 09:58 read_tree.h
lrwxr-xr-x@   1 name  staff    20 Jul 11 09:58 stringparse.c -> ../src/stringparse.c
lrwxr-xr-x@   1 name  staff    20 Jul 11 09:58 stringparse.h -> ../src/stringparse.h
lrwxr-xr-x@   1 name  staff    17 Jul 11 09:58 strtonum.c -> ../src/strtonum.c
-rw-r--r--@   1 name  staff   885 Jul 11 09:58 zacc.c

Answer 1

Looks like scp on Mac does not follow symlinks, and your symlinked files are the ones causing the problem for you.

Two of many possible options are:
0. Use -r option of scp (manpage says it follows symlinks).
1. Tarball the files into one package, and send this single file over scp.
2. Copy the folder (dereferencing symlinks) and scp this new folder.

0) Recursive SCP option

Manpage of scp reads:

-r      Recursively copy entire directories.  Note that scp follows symbolic links encountered in the tree traversal.

Therefore, I expect the following to work:

scp -r read_tree <destination>

(However, I've not tested this on Mac, but it DOES work on GNU/Linux systems.)

1) Tarball Option

Package the folder, using tar -h, and send the one resulting file.

tar czhf read_tree.tgz read_tree
scp read_tree.tgz <destination>

Now, you can ssh into the remote server and unpack the files:

ssh <destination>
cd ~/Work/gmovie
tar xvf read_tree.tgz

2) Copy folder dereferencing symlinks

Make a copy of the original folder, but make sure symlinks are dereferenced to copy the original files. This can be achieved using cp -L:

cp -rLf read_tree read_tree_nosymlinks

Now scp the new folder:

scp -r read_tree_nosymlinks <destination>