rdist(1)rdist(1)Namerdist - remote file distribution program
Syntaxrdist [ -nqbRhivwy ] [ -f distfile ] [ -d var=value ] [ -m host ] [
name ... ]
rdist [ -nqbRhivwy ] [ -c name ... [login@]host[:dest]
Description
The program maintains 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. reads commands from distfile
to direct the updating of files and/or directories. If distfile is
`-', the standard input is used. If no -f option is present, the pro‐
gram looks first for `distfile', then `Distfile' to use as the input.
If no names are specified on the command line, 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 spe‐
cific commands.
Options-c Forces to interpret the remaining arguments as a small distfile.
The equivalent distfile is as follows.
( name ... ) -> [login@]host
install [dest] ;
-d Defines 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 parenthe‐
ses and separated by tabs and/or spaces.
-m Limit which machines are to be updated. Multiple -m arguments can
be given to limit updates to a subset of the hosts listed the dis‐
tfile.
-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 mas‐
ter directory are removed. This is useful for maintaining truly
identical copies of directories.
-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.
-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that are out of date will be displayed but no files will be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 struc‐
ture 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 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 mes‐
sage is printed for files which are newer than the master copy.
-b Binary comparison. Perform a binary comparison and update files if
they differ rather than comparing dates and sizes.
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 other‐
wise ignored. Comments begin with a sharp sign (#) and end with a new‐
line.
Variables to be expanded begin with dollar sign ($) followed by one
character or a name enclosed in curly braces (see the examples at the
end).
The source list and destination list have the following format:
<name>
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 They can be
escaped with a backslash (. The tilde character (~) is also expanded
in the same way as but is expanded separately on the local and destina‐
tion hosts. When the -w option is used with a file name that begins
with tilde (~), 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 directo‐
ries. 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 reg‐
ular 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 desti‐
nation 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 at sign (@)
appears in the name, the destination host is appended to the name (for
example, 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 for details). If one of the
patterns matches some string within a file name, that file will be
ignored. Note that since \e 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 dollar sign ($), it must be escaped with \e.
The special command is used to specify 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 double quotes (") and can cross multiple lines in
distfile. Multiple commands to the shell should be separated by semi-
colons (;). 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 ;
Restrictions
Source files must reside on the local host where is executed.
There is no easy way to have a special command executed after all files
in a directory have been updated.
Variable expansion only works for name lists; there should be a general
macro facility.
aborts on files which have a negative mtime (before Jan 1, 1970).
Diagnostics
A complaint about mismatch of version numbers may really stem from some
problem with starting your shell (that is, you are in too many groups).
Files
distfile input command file
/tmp/rdist* temporary file for update lists
See Alsosh(1), csh(1), stat(2)rdist(1)
