atlas cp

file version: 10 July 2026

Overview

atlas cp copies one or more files or directories to a new location on the server.

When more than one source is given, or when the destination ends with / or a source is a glob, the destination is treated as a directory and each source is placed at <destination>/<basename(source)>.

Usage

atlas cp <source...> <destination> [flags]

Restart Behavior

The following flags control restart behavior when the destination file already exists.

Flag	Description
-f, --force	Overwrite unconditionally
-u, --update	Skip if destination is at least as new as source
--ignore-existing	Skip files that already exist at the destination
--modify-window int	Tolerate mtime drift in seconds under --update
-n, --dry-run	Submit a job that decides what to do but writes nothing

Other Flags

Flag	Description
-r, --recursive	Copy directories recursively
-t, --target-directory string	Copy all sources into a target directory
-h, --help	Show help for cp

Examples

atlas cp /data/file.txt /backup/file.txt
atlas cp -r /data/project /backup/project --force
atlas cp -r --update /data/project /backup/project   # rsync-style restart
atlas cp -n -r /data/project /backup/project         # preview only
atlas ls -R -0 /src | xargs -0 atlas cp -t /dst       # NUL-safe batch copy

Global Flags

Flag	Description
--ca-cert string	Path to CA certificate for server verification
--format string	Machine-readable output format (json or csv); omit for the default human-readable output
-L, --lang string	Interface language (en, de)
--no-color	Disable color output
-P, --plaintext	Use plaintext (non-TLS) connection
-s, --server string	ATLAS server address; defaults to ACLI_SERVER, then the stored session, /etc/atlas/atlas.conf, and finally localhost:7449
--tls-skip-verify	Skip TLS certificate verification; enabled by default for self-signed setups