pscp doesn't read .profile

Question

I'm transfering a file from Windows XP SP2 to AIX 5.3. In my .profile I have umask 002defined. After the transfer, the file always has 644 permissions, so it seems pscp doesn't read my profile. As a test I've tried doing an echo at the end of my .profile, which doesn't show up when I execute pscp. I'm not sure whether pscp would actually show anything that's being echo'd.

My version:

H:\User>pscp.exe -V
pscp: Development snapshot 2010-02-16:r8855

My execution:

H:\User>pscp.exe -scp -p -v -pw PASSWORD test.txt USER@sdaa0124:/home/USER/test.txt

Answer 1

This is a shell issue. Your shell only reads .profile for interactive logons and scp is a non-interactive session.

I don't remember much about AIX anymore. Look in the manpage for your shell, it will tell you which file it reads for non-interactive logins. In that file, simply source .profile (or add the umask command that you need).