Copying a compressed disk image across the network using netcat and dd

Here is a handy command to copy a disk image (such as a VM) across the network compressed. We also do a SHA1 hash to make sure it copied correctly. The idea is to only read and write the data once, to make it as quick as possible.

On the box you are copying the disk from:

mkfifo /tmp/disk.dat; sha1sum /tmp/disk.dat & dd bs=256k if=mydisk.dd | tee /tmp/disk.dat | gzip -1 | nc -q 2 10.1.1.1 8181

On the box you are copying the disk to:

nc -l 8181 | gunzip | tee image.dd | sha1sum | tee image.dd.sha1

The quick and dirty version with no hash checking is below. Note if your source is OS X you want -w instead of -q in the netcat command. I've used this with two macs connected via thunderbolt/firewire, one in TDM, and one sending the image to a linux box:

dd bs=256k if=mydisk.dd | gzip -1 | nc -q 2 10.1.1.1 8181
nc -l 8181 | gunzip > image.dd