The program NETCOPY copies files from the database server machine to the local machine (or vice versa); its syntax is:
NETCOPY -FROM FILENAME [ -TO FILENAME ] [ -TOSERVER ]
If the TO is omitted, the file is copied to the same name. If -TOSERVER is specified, the file is copied from the local machine to the database server. NETCOPY does not accept wild card filenames.
NETCOPY does not rely on any kind of file sharing or network drives etc. It can be used between any two machines which can be linked by DP4.
In Windows environments NETCOPY could allow a malicious user to gain unauthorised access to a server's files, and change or view information that would normally be denied to him. For this reason you may wish to disable this program. This can be done using the -nocopy or -rocopy options on tcpmgr. See Command Tails for more information.
If local database resilience is in operation, then the database manager must be loaded with the command tail -READLOCAL for this program to read from the remote machine. No doubt there is a good explanation for why this command tail has such a misleading name, but please remember that it is misleading.
If multiple server resilience is in operation, the additional command tail -server n is required to specify which remote server is to be used.
Nowadays NETCOPY is mainly used to ensure that the system clock on two machines is synchronised. To "copy" the current date/time setting (instead of a file), use: NETCOPY -DATE [-TOSERVER]
Note that on many platforms a program requires "root" or "administrator" privileges to be able to change the date or time on the system.