RDIST(1) RDIST(1) NAME rdist - remote file distribution program SYNOPSIS rdist [ -nqbRhivwy ] [ -f distfile ] [ -d var=value ] [ -m host ] [ name ... ] rdist [ -nqbRhivwy ] -c name ... [login@]host[:dest] DESCRIPTION _R_d_i_s_t is a program to maintain identical copies of files over multiple hosts. It preserves the owner, group, mode, and mtime of files if pos‐ sible and can update programs that are executing. _R_d_i_s_t reads commands from _d_i_s_t_f_i_l_e to direct the updating of files and/or directories. If _d_i_s_t_f_i_l_e is ‘-’, the standard input is used. If no -f option is present, the program looks first for ‘distfile’, then ‘Distfile’ to use as the input. If no names are specified on the command line, _r_d_i_s_t will update all of the files and directories listed in _d_i_s_t_f_i_l_e. Oth‐ erwise, 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 spe‐ cific files using specific commands. The -c option forces _r_d_i_s_t to interpret the remaining arguments as a small _d_i_s_t_f_i_l_e. The equivalent distfile is as follows. ( _n_a_m_e ... ) -> [_l_o_g_i_n@]_h_o_s_t install [_d_e_s_t] ; Other options: -d Define _v_a_r to have _v_a_l_u_e. The -d option is used to define or override variable definitions in the _d_i_s_t_f_i_l_e. _V_a_l_u_e can be the empty string, one name, or a list of names surrounded by paren‐ theses 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 _d_i_s_t_f_i_l_e. -n Print the commands without executing them. This option is useful for debugging _d_i_s_t_f_i_l_e. -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 truely 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. _R_d_i_s_t will normally try to maintain the link structure of files being transfered 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 Any files that are out of date will be displayed but no files will be changed nor any mail sent.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 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 _m_t_i_m_e and _s_i_z_e (see _s_t_a_t(2)) disagree. The -y option causes _r_d_i_s_t 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. -b Binary comparison. Perform a binary comparison and update files if they differ rather than comparing dates and sizes. _D_i_s_t_f_i_l_e 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. ‘=’ [ label: ] ‘->’ [ label: ] ‘::’ 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 _s_o_u_r_c_e _l_i_s_t specifies a list of files and/or directories on the local host which are to be used as the master copy for distribution. The _d_e_s_t_i_n_a_t_i_o_n _l_i_s_t 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 ‘#’ 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 ‘(’ ‘)’ The shell meta-characters ‘[’, ‘]’, ‘{’, ‘}’, ‘*’, and ‘?’ are recog‐ nized and expanded (on the local host only) in the same way as _c_s_h(1). They can be escaped with a backslash. The ‘~’ character is also expanded in the same way as _c_s_h 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’ opt_dest_name ‘;’ ‘notify’ ‘;’ ‘except’ ‘;’ ‘except_pat’ ‘;’ ‘special’ string ‘;’ The _i_n_s_t_a_l_l 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. _O_p_t__d_e_s_t__n_a_m_e is an optional parameter to rename files. If no _i_n_s_t_a_l_l 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 com‐ pletely absent on the master host. The _o_p_t_i_o_n_s 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 _n_o_t_i_f_y 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 the name (e.g., name1@host, name2@host, ...). The _e_x_c_e_p_t command is used to update all of the files in the source list except for the files listed in _n_a_m_e _l_i_s_t. This is usually used to copy everything in a directory except certain files. The _e_x_c_e_p_t__p_a_t command is like the _e_x_c_e_p_t command except that _p_a_t_t_e_r_n _l_i_s_t is a list of regular expressions (see _e_d(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 dou‐ bled to become part of the regular expression. Variables are expanded in _p_a_t_t_e_r_n _l_i_s_t but not shell file pattern matching characters. To include a ‘$’, it must be escaped with ‘\’. The _s_p_e_c_i_a_l command is used to specify _s_h(1) commands that are to be executed on the remote host after the file in _n_a_m_e _l_i_s_t is updated or installed. If the _n_a_m_e _l_i_s_t 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 _s_t_r_i_n_g. _S_t_r_i_n_g starts and ends with ‘"’ and can cross multiple lines in _d_i_s_t_f_i_l_e_. Multiple commands to the shell should be separated by ‘;’. Commands are executed in the user’s home directory on the host being updated. The _s_p_e_c_i_a_l 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 ; FILES distfile input command file /tmp/rdist* temporary file for update lists SEE ALSO sh(1), csh(1), stat(2) DIAGNOSTICS 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. BUGS Source files must reside on the local host where 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. _R_d_i_s_t 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. 4.3 Berkeley Distribution May 13, 1986 RDIST(1)