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.\" @(#)rdist.1 6.11 (Berkeley) 7/27/91
.Nd remote file distribution program
.Oo login@ Oc Ns Ar host Ns Op :dest
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.
to direct the updating of files and/or directories.
Options specific to the first SYNOPSIS form:
the standard input is used.
option is not specified, the program looks first for
If no names are specified on the command line,
will update all of the files and directories listed in
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
Options specific to the second SYNOPSIS form:
to interpret the remaining arguments as a small
The equivalent distfile is as follows.
.Bd -filled -offset indent -compact
.Bd -filled -offset indent -compact
Options common to both forms:
Binary comparison. Perform a binary comparison and update files if they differ
rather than comparing dates and sizes.
option is used to define or override variable definitions in the
can be the empty string, one name, or a list of names surrounded by
parentheses and separated by tabs and/or spaces.
Follow symbolic links. Copy the file that the link points to rather than the
will normally try to maintain the link structure of files being transfered
and warn the user if all the links cannot be found.
Limit which machines are to be updated. Multiple
arguments can be given to limit updates to a subset of the hosts listed the
Print the commands without executing them. This option is
Quiet mode. Files that are being modified are normally
printed on standard output. The
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 truely identical copies of directories.
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that are out of date will be displayed but no files will be changed
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.
Younger mode. Files are normally updated if their
not to update files that are younger than the master copy.
to prevent newer copies on other hosts from being replaced.
A warning message is printed for files which are newer than the master copy.
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.
.Bd -literal -offset indent -compact
<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
list of files and/or directories on the local host which are to be used
as the master copy for distribution.
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:
.Bd -literal -offset indent
.Bd -literal -offset indent -compact
`(' <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 `~' character is also expanded in the same way as
but is expanded separately on the local and destination hosts.
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
.Bd -ragged -offset indent -compact
.Bl -column except_patx pattern\ listx
.It `install' <options> opt_dest_name `;'
.It `notify' <name list> `;'
.It `except' <name list> `;'
.It `except_pat' <pattern list> `;'
.It `special' <name list> string `;'
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.
is an optional parameter to rename files.
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.
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
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".
command is used to mail the list of files updated (and any errors
that may have occured) to the listed names.
If no `@' appears in the name, the destination host is appended to
(e.g., name1@host, name2@host, ...).
command is used to update all of the files in the source list
This is usually used to copy everything in a directory except certain files.
is a list of regular expressions
If one of the patterns matches some string within a file name, that file will
Note that since `\e' is a quote character, it must be doubled to become
part of the regular expression. Variables are expanded in
but not shell file pattern matching characters. To include a `$', it
must be escaped with `\e'.
command is used to specify
commands that are to be executed on the
remote host after the file in
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
starts and ends with `"' and can cross multiple lines in
Multiple commands to the shell should be separated by `;'.
Commands are executed in the user's home directory on the host
command can be used to rebuild private databases, etc.
after a program has been updated.
The following is a small example:
.Bd -literal -offset indent
HOSTS = ( matisse root@arpa )
FILES = ( /bin /lib /usr/bin /usr/games
\t/usr/include/{*.h,{stand,sys,vax*,pascal,machine}/*.h}
\t/usr/lib /usr/man/man? /usr/ucb /usr/local/rdist )
EXLIB = ( Mail.rc aliases aliases.dir aliases.pag crontab dshrc
\tsendmail.cf sendmail.fc sendmail.hf sendmail.st uucp vfont )
\texcept /usr/lib/${EXLIB} ;
\texcept /usr/games/lib ;
\tspecial /usr/lib/sendmail "/usr/lib/sendmail -bz" ;
\texcept_pat ( \e\e.o\e$ /SCCS\e$ ) ;
IMAGEN = (ips dviimp catdvi)
/usr/local/${IMAGEN} -> arpa
\tinstall /usr/local/lib ;
.Bl -tag -width /tmp/rdist* -compact
temporary file for update lists
A complaint about mismatch of rdist version numbers may really stem
from some problem with starting your shell, e.g., you are in too many groups.
Source files must reside on the local host where
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
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.