Copying files to/from UT Box at the command line

Follow the directions here to set up an additional Box password that you will use for connecting:
https://uisapp2.iu.edu/confluence-prd/display/SOICKB/Using+Box+under+Linux

You will need LFTP installed on your system. It is already installed on TACC

Open the file ~/.lftp/rc in a text editor. (You may need to first create the ~/.lftp folder if it does not exist. Strictly speaking, this step is optional. You could run these commands every time you enter the LFTP shell to temporarily set the options.)

Add these lines to the ~/.lftp/rc file.

set ftps:initial-prot ""
set ftp:ssl-force true
set ftp:ssl-protect-data true

lftp ftps://ftp.box.com:990
lftp ftp.box.com:~> user XXXX@XXX.utexas.edu

LFTP commands are a dialect of FTP commands. If you are not familiar with these, here is a reference.

Here are some useful commands for working with your local directory from within the LFTP shell:

• lcd lets you change local directories.
• !ls lets you list the contents of your local directory.

To recursively copy directories, you will need this command:

mirror -R {local dir} {remote dir}

This does not delete a file from {remote dir} if it has been deleted in {local dir} since the last backup. You would need to add the --delete flag for that type of sync, but be very careful when doing so! You can use the --dry-run option to see what would have been deleted before running it.

Note: Sometimes you may get an error looking like this during a mirror -R call. The file has been successfully transferred despite this message!

mirror: Access failed: 550 Box: Item with the same name already exists (code=item_name_in_use, request_id=XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX). (FILENAME)