MacOS cannot copy “special” files…they are marked with “s”

filesystem

Their permission scheme is srwxr-xr-x.

I can't copy them, as I get the following error message.

cp: cannot create special file '/Volumes/Samsung_T5/Dockers/vms/0/00000002.00001003': Operation not permitted

I tried with sudo, but the files are still not copied, although the message is a bit different. This time, it says "Invalid argument."

And yes, I'm trying to move Docker folder to an external disks as it is filling up my hard disk.

Best Answer

This is a (s)ocket type file. As such, it doesn't have any persistent data associated with it and thus it makes no sense to copy it.

Sockets enable communication between two different processes on the same or on different machines. This communication is done using standard Unix/Linux file descriptors, using read() and write() system calls.