RDIST(1) | General Commands Manual | RDIST(1) |
rdist
—
rdist |
[-bDhinqRvwy ] [-d
var=value] [-f
distfile] [-m
host] [name ...] |
rdist |
[-bDhinqRvwy ] -c
name ...
[login@]host[:dest] |
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:
-
-
’, the standard input is
used.-f
distfileIf 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
rdist
to interpret the remaining arguments
as a small distfile.
The equivalent distfile is as follows.
->
[login@]
hostinstall
[dest];Options common to both forms:
-b
-d
var=value-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.-D
-h
-i
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-m
arguments can be given to limit updates to a
subset of the hosts listed in the distfile.-n
-q
-q
option suppresses this.-R
-v
-w
-y
-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.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:
<name>
`(' <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
ed(1) 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 ;
rdist
command appeared in
4.3BSD.
rdist
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.
rdist
aborts on files which have a
negative mtime (before Jan 1, 1970).
There should be a `force' option to allow replacement of non-empty directories by regular files or symlinks. A means of updating file modes and owners of otherwise identical files is also needed.
March 17, 1994 | NetBSD 9.4 |