Rdist
is a program to maintain identical copies of files
over multiple hosts. It preserves the owner, group, mode, and mtime of files
if possible and can update programs that are executing.
Rdist
reads commands from
distfile to direct the updating of files and/or
directories.
Options specific to the first SYNOPSIS form:
-
- If distfile is
‘
-
’, the standard input is
used.
-f
distfile
- Use the specified distfile.
If either the -f
or
‘-
’ option is not specified, the
program looks first for “distfile”,
then “Distfile” to use as the input.
If no names are specified on the command line, rdist
will update all of the files and directories listed in
distfile. Otherwise, the argument is taken to be the
name of a file to be updated or the label of a command to execute. If label
and file names conflict, it is assumed to be a label. These may be used
together to update specific files using specific commands.
Options specific to the second SYNOPSIS form:
-c
- Forces
rdist
to interpret the remaining arguments
as a small distfile.
The equivalent distfile is as follows.
(
name ...)
->
[
login@]
host
install
[dest];
Options common to both forms:
-P
rshcmd
- Alternative program to provide
rsh(1)
-like transport to the remote server. It must provide a binary-transparent
path to the remote server, and must have a command argument syntax that is
compatible with
rsh(1).
-d
var=value
- Define var to have value. The
-d
option is used to define or override variable
definitions in the distfile.
Value can be the empty string, one name, or a list
of names surrounded by parentheses and separated by tabs and/or
spaces.
-h
- Follow symbolic links. Copy the file that the link points to rather than
the link itself.
-i
- Ignore unresolved links.
Rdist
will normally try
to maintain the link structure of files being transferred and warn the
user if all the links cannot be found.
-m
host
- Limit which machines are to be updated. Multiple
-m
arguments can be given to limit updates to a
subset of the hosts listed in the distfile.
-n
- Print the commands without executing them. This option is useful for
debugging distfile.
-q
- Quiet mode. Files that are being modified are normally printed on standard
output. The
-q
option suppresses this.
-R
- Remove extraneous files. If a directory is being updated, any files that
exist on the remote host that do not exist in the master directory are
removed. This is useful for maintaining truly identical copies of
directories.
-v
- Verify that the files are up to date on all the hosts. Any files that are
out of date will be displayed but no files will be changed nor any mail
sent.
-w
- Whole mode. The whole file name is appended to the destination directory
name. Normally, only the last component of a name is used when renaming
files. This will preserve the directory structure of the files being
copied instead of flattening the directory structure. For example,
renaming a list of files such as ( dir1/f1 dir2/f2 ) to dir3 would create
files dir3/dir1/f1 and dir3/dir2/f2 instead of dir3/f1 and dir3/f2.
-y
- Younger mode. Files are normally updated if their
mtime and size (see
stat(2))
disagree. The
-y
option causes
rdist
not to update files that are younger than
the master copy. This can be used to prevent newer copies on other hosts
from being replaced. A warning message is printed for files which are
newer than the master copy.
-D
- Debug mode.
Distfile contains a sequence of entries that
specify the files to be copied, the destination hosts, and what operations
to perform to do the updating. Each entry has one of the following
formats.
<variable name> `=' <name list>
[label:]<source list> `->' <destination list> <command list>
[label:]<source list> `::' <time_stamp file> <command list>
The first format is used for defining variables. The second format
is used for distributing files to other hosts. The third format is used for
making lists of files that have been changed since some given date. The
source list specifies a list of files and/or
directories on the local host which are to be used as the master copy for
distribution. The destination list is the list of
hosts to which these files are to be copied. Each file in the source list is
added to a list of changes if the file is out of date on the host which is
being updated (second format) or the file is newer than the time stamp file
(third format).
Labels are optional. They are used to identify a command for
partial updates.
Newlines, tabs, and blanks are only used as separators and are
otherwise ignored. Comments begin with `#' and end with a newline.
Variables to be expanded begin with `$' followed by one character
or a name enclosed in curly braces (see the examples at the end).
The source and destination lists have the following format:
or
`(' <zero or more names separated by white-space> `)'
The shell meta-characters `[', `]', `{', `}', `*', and `?' are
recognized and expanded (on the local host only) in the same way as
csh(1).
They can be escaped with a backslash. The `~' character is also expanded in
the same way as
csh(1) but
is expanded separately on the local and destination hosts. When the
-w
option is used with a file name that begins with
`~', everything except the home directory is appended to the destination
name. File names which do not begin with `/' or `~' use the destination
user's home directory as the root directory for the rest of the file
name.
The command list consists of zero or more commands of the
following format.
`install' |
<options> |
opt_dest_name `;' |
`notify' |
<name list> |
`;' |
`except' |
<name list> |
`;' |
`except_pat' |
<pattern list> |
`;' |
`special' |
<name list> |
string `;' |
The install
command is used to copy out of
date files and/or directories. Each source file is copied to each host in
the destination list. Directories are recursively copied in the same way.
Opt_dest_name is an optional parameter to rename
files. If no install
command appears in the command
list or the destination name is not specified, the source file name is used.
Directories in the path name will be created if they do not exist on the
remote host. To help prevent disasters, a non-empty directory on a target
host will never be replaced with a regular file or a symbolic link. However,
under the `-R' option a non-empty directory will be removed if the
corresponding filename is completely absent on the master host. The
options are `-R', `-h', `-i', `-v', `-w', `-y', and
`-b' and have the same semantics as options on the command line except they
only apply to the files in the source list. The login name used on the
destination host is the same as the local host unless the destination name
is of the format ``login@host".
The notify
command is used to mail the
list of files updated (and any errors that may have occurred) to the listed
names. If no `@' appears in the name, the destination host is appended to
the name (e.g., name1@host, name2@host, ...).
The except
command is used to update all
of the files in the source list except
for the files
listed in name list. This is usually used to copy
everything in a directory except certain files.
The except_pat
command is like the
except
command except that pattern
list is a list of regular expressions (see
re_format(7)
for details). If one of the patterns matches some string within a file name,
that file will be ignored. Note that since `\' is a quote character, it must
be doubled to become part of the regular expression. Variables are expanded
in pattern list but not shell file pattern matching
characters. To include a `$', it must be escaped with `\'.
The special
command is used to specify
sh(1)
commands that are to be executed on the remote host after the file in
name list is updated or installed. If the
name list is omitted then the shell commands will be
executed for every file updated or installed. The shell variable `FILE' is
set to the current filename before executing the commands in
string. String starts and ends
with `"' and can cross multiple lines in
distfile. Multiple commands to the shell should be
separated by `;'. Commands are executed in the user's home directory on the
host being updated. The special command can be used to
rebuild private databases, etc. after a program has been updated.
The following is a small example:
HOSTS = ( matisse root@arpa )
FILES = ( /bin /lib /usr/bin /usr/games
/usr/include/{*.h,{stand,sys,vax*,pascal,machine}/*.h}
/usr/lib /usr/man/man? /usr/ucb /usr/local/rdist )
EXLIB = ( Mail.rc aliases aliases.dir aliases.pag crontab dshrc
sendmail.cf sendmail.fc sendmail.hf sendmail.st uucp vfont )
${FILES} -> ${HOSTS}
install -R ;
except /usr/lib/${EXLIB} ;
except /usr/games/lib ;
special /usr/lib/sendmail "/usr/lib/sendmail -bz" ;
srcs:
/usr/src/bin -> arpa
except_pat ( \\.o\$ /SCCS\$ ) ;
IMAGEN = (ips dviimp catdvi)
imagen:
/usr/local/${IMAGEN} -> arpa
install /usr/local/lib ;
notify ralph ;
${FILES} :: stamp.cory
notify root@cory ;