Command Line – Sending Files Over Samba

FYI, I got some help from Red Hat...the problem was SELinux restricting permissions. I don't need the control offered by SELinux, so I just disabled it by editing /etc/selinux/config and restarting.

Instead use a more low level form of copying files by catting them locally, and piping that into a remote cat > filename command on priv-server:

$ cat file1.txt | ssh -A user@pub-server 'ssh user@priv-server "cat > file1.txt"'

or with compression:

$ gzip -c file1.txt | ssh -A user@pub-server 'ssh user@priv-server "gunzip -c > file1.txt"'

Outtake from man ssh:

-A Enables forwarding of the authentication agent connection. This can also be specified on a per-host basis in a configuration file.

-t Force pseudo-tty allocation. This can be used to execute arbitrary screen-based programs on a remote machine, which can be very useful, e.g. when implementing menu services. Multiple -t options force tty allocation, even if ssh has no local tty.

I initially wasn't aware of an answer, but after a good night's sleep and writing this question, I saw a problem with the command I was trying initially, fixed it, and it worked. But as this seems like a useful thing to do, I decided to share the answer.