You have an error in your script - the command you're sending to the remote machine is not interpolated. You likely want:

$cmd="tar -czf - $rmt_dir";

[download]

Depending on how dire your error handling situation is, avoiding Perl might be the most convenient way to resolve your memory issues:

#!/usr/bin/sh
ssh -c "tar -czf - $rmt_dir" >backup.tar.gz

[download]

This will run the tar command remotely and output the created .tar.gz file directly to STDOUT, and on the local end will write the output directly into a file instead of buffering it locally in memory. You will need some error checking afterwards though.

In reply to Re: Probelm getting a large compressed tar file over ssh. by Corion
in thread Probelm getting a large compressed tar file over ssh. by swares

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