how to copy all files from one location to another in linux

Question

I want to copy all the folders and files in the /var/www/ directory to another directory /media/magneto/

How do I do this?

I tried this command

cp -pRiv /var/www/ /media/magneto/

that didn't work because it basically created a directory called www underneath magento and started copying...

Answer 1

Try

cp -R /var/www /media/magneto Avoid the extra forward slash at the end of the path name.

Or

you can navigate to the /var directory in terminal and then try

cp -R www /media/magneto

Answer 2

If the magneto directory exists, you can use the following command:

cp -R /var/www /media/magneto

If it doesn't already exist you can use the following command to create it:

rsync -av /var/www/ /media/magneto

Answer 3

cp -pRiv /var/www/{*,.*} /media/magneto

and, dovetailing off Thomas' answer:

pushd /var/www; cp -R . /media/magneto; popd;