CLI Machines Files Get

ed machines files get

Downloads one file from the machine to this Mac.

ed machines files get <machine> <remote> [local] [--json]

Name	Type / values	Default	What it does
machine	machine name, SSH alias, id or unambiguous prefix	required	Which machine to read from.
remote	remote file path	required	The file to download.
local	local path, ~ expanded	the remote file's name, in the working directory	Where to write it.
--json	flag	off	Emit JSON on stdout.

{
  "local": "/Users/pulkit/os-release",
  "remote": "/etc/os-release",
  "sizeBytes": 382
}

ed machines files get tuf /etc/os-release
ed machines files get tuf /var/log/syslog ~/Desktop/syslog.txt
ed machines files get tuf /etc/hosts --json

The transfer is cat <remote> on the far side, streamed into the local file 128 KB at a time over the shared connection. There is no timeout: a large file takes as long as it takes. The local path is created or truncated without asking, so downloading twice overwrites the first copy.

Before the first byte moves, ed asks the machine how big the file is with stat, capped at 30 seconds, and then keeps one line on stderr up to date as the bytes land: the file name, what has arrived, the total, and a percentage. That line is repainted on a timer roughly ten times a second rather than once per chunk, and it is transient, cleared when the transfer ends or fails:

$ ed machines files get tuf /srv/backup.tar.gz
  ⠹ backup.tar.gz  24.0 MB of 87.3 MB  27% 14s

It is written only when stderr is a terminal, and never with --json, so a piped or redirected run is as quiet as it ever was. When the stat cannot answer, the meter falls back to the bytes received alone, with no total and no percentage.

sizeBytes is measured from the local file after the transfer rather than from the size the machine reported for the meter, so it is what actually landed, and it is 0 if the file cannot be stat'ed. The human line is the path and that size:

$ ed machines files get tuf /etc/os-release
/Users/pulkit/os-release  382 B

A remote path that does not exist, or one cat refuses such as a directory, exits 1, and the half-written local file is removed rather than left looking complete:

$ ed machines files get tuf /etc/shadow
error: download failed: cat: /etc/shadow: Permission denied

Where to go next

• ed machines files, the rest of this group
• All ed commands