Copy Data Between Projects
If you have two projects, or more, of which you want to copy data between there is a utility pod "OC copy" that enables you to do so.
Read this documentation carefully. There are multiple steps involved to make this work properly. Please fully read the documentation first before using the OC copy pod.
Prerequisites
- A deployment and running pod in the project you want to copy your data and files to. For example, a JupyterLab or RStudio deployment.
- A deployment and running pod in the project you want to copy your data and file from. Note that the running pod needs to be connected to the PVC which holds your data you want to copy!
- All PVCs need to have storageClass
ocs-storagecluster-cephfsand volumeMode:ReadWriteMany(RWX).
Select the right template
You will need to deploy the OC copy pod in the project you want the data to end up. So, the project where you want to copy the data to needs to have the OC copy pod.
Select the OC copy template via searching for it through the catalogue in the web UI. You will be presented with a form that you'll need to fill in. In the PVC to mount field, you need to fill in the PVC name connected to the running pod to which you want to copy your data and files to.
Example - part 1
You have projects rstudio-project-1 which has data and files you want to copy to project jupyterlab-project-2.
In project rstudio-project-1, you have a RStudio pod running connected to a PVC named rstudio-pvc. This PVC has your data and files you want to copy to jupyterlab-project-2.
In project jupyterlab-project-2, you have a JupyterLab pod running conencted to a PVC named jupyterlab-pvc. This is the PVC you want to copy the data and files to.
Therefore, you will instantiate the OC copy template in project jupyterlab-project-2 and will fill in for the PVC to mount field the name of the JupyterLab pod's PVC. You will fill in: jupyterlab-pvc.
Using the OC copy pod
To use the OC copy pod you will need to connect to the pod's terminal. You could either do this via the web UI, or via the OC CLI on your machine.
Either use rsh or exec to connect to the OC copy pod's terminal.
oc rsh -n <projectname> oc-copy
or
oc exec -it oc-copy -n <projectname> -- sh
Starting tmux shell session
This is a very important step, especially when copying over large amounts of data and files! This will make sure the copying process will keep on going even when you disconnect from the OC copy pod's terminal.
To start a named tmux shell session run the following command, in this example we name the tmux shell session: copy.
tmux new -s copy
Logging into the OC CLI inside the OC copy pod
To get your token:
- Go to the DSRI web UI.
- Click your username in the top right corner and select Copy login command.
- Paste the command in your terminal and run it.
oc login https://<URL>:<port> --token=<token>
List available projects, and select the right project
You need to select the correct project. In this case this will be the project you want to copy your data and files from.
oc projects
oc project <projectname>
Get the pod's name
You need to get the correct pod's name. In this case this will be the pod you want to copy your data and files from.
oc get pods
Copy using oc cp
oc cp copies files or folders, overwriting existing files.
First, get the pod name using your application name:
oc cp <podname>:<path_to_your_files> /persistent
Always use the absolute path in the pod, for example /home/jovyan/persistent for JupyterLab or /root/persistent for RStudio.
Copy using oc rsync
Use oc rsync when you have many large files or files that change regularly. Unlike oc cp, rsync only transfers files that have changed, shows progress, and can resume if interrupted.
oc rsync --progress <podname>:<path_to_your_files> /persistent
oc rsync does not work with symlinks created with ln -s.
Always use the absolute path in the pod, for example /home/jovyan/persistent for JupyterLab or /root/persistent for RStudio.
Detach from the tmux shell session and exit the OC copy pod's terminal
This is again a very important step. If not done correctly, the copying process will stop and copying over the data and files will fail!
To detach from the tmux shell session, on your keyboard press:
Ctrl-b
then
d
Now you can exit the OC copy pod's terminal without disrupting the copying process. Just type exit to exit the terminal.
exit
Reconnect to the OC copy pod's terminal and tmux shell session
When you want to check the progress after a while, or see if the copying process has finished correctly, you can reconnect to the terminal and tmux shell session.
Connect to the OC copy pod's terminal via the web UI, or via the OC CLI on your machine.
Either use rsh or exec to connect to the OC copy pod's terminal.
oc rsh -n <projectname> oc-copy
or
oc exec -it oc-copy -n <projectname> -- sh
List active tmux sessions
To make sure you are going to reattach to the correct tmux shell session, list the active sessions.
tmux ls
Reattach to the tmux shell session
Now that you have the name of the tmux shell session, you can reattach to it. Please be aware of the name we gave the tmux shell session earlier in this documentation: copy.
tmux attach -t copy
Additional tmux information
Scrolling to see earlier output in tmux is Ctrl-b then [, then arrow/PageUp to scroll, and q to quit scroll mode.
Example - part 2
In the previous part we instantiated and deployed the OC copy pod in the jupyterlab-project-2 project and connected the OC copy pod to the jupyterlab-pvc PVC. In this part we are going to copy over data and files from the rstudio-project-1 project to the jupyterlab-project-2 project. More specifically we will copy it over from the rstudio-pvc PVC to the jupyterlab-pvc PVC.
First we will connect to the OC copy pod in the jupyterlab-project-2 project. We will use oc rsh for this from the OC CLI.
oc rsh -n jupyterlab-project-2 oc-copy
Now we are connected to the OC copy pod's terminal. Let's start a tmux shell session, so we can safely exit the terminal without losing the copying process when it is still running.
Note that we name this tmux shell sessions: copy
tmux new -s copy
Inside this tmux shell session we will need to log into the OC CLI in order to be able to connect to the rstudio-project-1 project.
Follow the steps above on how to get your OC CLI token.
oc login https://<URL>:<port> --token=<token>
Next, we need to make sure we are connected to the rstudio-project-1 project. Let's list our available projects and connect to the rstudio-project-1 project.
oc projects
output:
rstudio-project-1
jupyterlab-project-2
Connect to the rstudio-project-1 project.
oc project rstudio-project-1
Now we can retrieve the exact podname of our RStudio pod which is connected to the rstudio-pvc PVC, and which has the data and files we want to copy over to the jupyterlab-project-2 project.
oc get pods
output:
NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE
rstudio-6cbcfd65cf-wj65p 1/1 Running 0 1d
Now we can start the copying process. In the example we will use oc rsync. Note that the full path to the persistent folder, which has our data and files, in a RStudio pod is /root/persistent.
oc rsync --progress rstudio-6cbcfd65cf-wj65p:/root/persistent /persistent
While the copy process is running we can choose to detach from the tmux shell session and exit the OC copy pod's terminal. If we choose not to do so, we need to make sure we stay connected to the terminal. In other words, don't close your laptop/PC, disconnect from the VPN, put your laptop/PC to sleep etc. When you connected to the OC copy pod's terminal via the web UI, don't close your browser.
Ctrl-d
then
d
We have detached from the tmux session. We can safely exit the terminal now, and therefore also for example close our laptop.
exit
If we want to check the progress after a while, or when the copying process is done and you want to verify it, we can reconnect to the OC copy pod's terminal and reattach to the tmux shell session.
First reconnect to the OC copy pod's terminal.
oc rsh -n jupyterlab-project-2 oc-copy
Now we can list the active tmux shell session(s).
tmux ls
output:
copy: 1 windows (created Fri Jul 31 11:35:40 2026)
Let's connect to the (only) tmux shell session, named copy.
tmux attach -t copy
You can check the progress, or either verify the copying process finished without any warnings and/or errors. After you can close everything by just typing exit in the tmux shell session and exit again in the OC copy pod's terminal.