RDIST(1,C) AIX TCP/IP User's Guide RDIST(1,C) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- rdist PURPOSE Maintains identical copies of files over multiple hosts. SYNTAX +--------+ +---------------+ +----------------+ rdist ---| +----+ |---| |---| |-... +-| -n |-+ +- -f distfile -+ +- -d var=value -+ ^| -q || || -b || || -R || || -h || || -i || || -v || || -w || || -y || |+----+| +------+ +-----------+ +--------+ ...-| |---| |---| +- -m host -+ +- name -+ ^ | +------+ +--------+ +-----------+ +---------+ rdist ---| +----+ |--- -c name ---| |--- host ---| |---| +-| -n |-+ +- login @ -+ +- :dest -+ ^| -q || || -b || || -R || || -h || || -i || || -v || || -w || || -y || |+----+| +------+ DESCRIPTION The rdist command maintains identical copies of files over multiple hosts. It preserves the owner, group, mode, and mtime of files if possible and can update Processed November 19, 1991 RDIST(1,C) 1 RDIST(1,C) AIX TCP/IP User's Guide RDIST(1,C) programs that are executing. The rdist command aborts when using files which have a negative mtime (file's time of last modification; see statx in the AIX Operating System Technical Reference). This command reads commands from distfile to direct the updating of files and directories. Source files must reside on the local host where rdist is executed. If distfile is -, the standard input is used. If no -f option is present, the program looks in the current directory first for a file called distfile, then a file called Distfile to use as the input. If no names are specified on the command line, rdist updates 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. There is no simple way to have a special command executed after all files in a directory have been updated. Note: When rdist encounters a hidden directory on the local host, it creates or updates a flat file on the destination host. The flat file will contain one of the selectable components of the hidden directory. FLAGS The rdist command options are: -b Binary comparison. Performs a binary comparison and updates files if they differ rather than comparing dates and sizes. -c name Forces rdist to interpret the remaining arguments as a small distfile. The equivalent distfile is as follows. (name ... ) -> [login@]host install [dest]; -d var=value 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 parentheses and separated by tabs and spaces. -D Displays debugging information. -f distfile Specifies the path name for distfile. If no -f option is present, it looks in the current directory first for distfile, then Distfile to use as the input. -h Follows symbolic links. Copies the file that the link points to rather than the link itself. -i Ignores unresolved links. rdist normally tries to maintain the link structure of files being transferred and warns the user if all the links cannot be found. Processed November 19, 1991 RDIST(1,C) 2 RDIST(1,C) AIX TCP/IP User's Guide RDIST(1,C) -m host Limits the machines which are to be updated. Multiple -m arguments can be given to limit updates to a subset of the hosts listed the distfile. -n Prints the commands without executing them. This option is useful for debugging distfile. -q Quiets mode. Files that are being modified are normally printed on standard output. The -q option suppresses this. -R Removes 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 Verifies that the files are up to date on all the hosts. Any files that are out of date are displayed but no files are 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 preserves 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 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. Distfile contains a sequence of entries that specifies the files to be copied, the destination hosts, and what operations the user needs to perform to update the files. 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 source list specifies a list of files and 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. Processed November 19, 1991 RDIST(1,C) 3 RDIST(1,C) AIX TCP/IP User's Guide RDIST(1,C) New lines, tabs, and blanks are only used as separators and are otherwise ignored. Comments begin with # and end with a new line. Variables to be expanded begin with $ followed by one character or a name enclosed in curly braces (see the examples at the end). Variable expansion only works for name lists. The source and destination lists have the following format: or ( ) The shell meta-characters [, ], {, }, *, and ? are recognized and expanded (on the local host only) in the same way as the C shell. They can be escaped with a backslash \. The ~ character is also expanded in the same way as the C shell 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. Note: The .rhosts file for the destination username should contain should contain the source host and user names. (Alternately, the host.equiv file file can contain this information.) PARAMETERS The command list consists of zero or more commands of the following format. install opt_dest_name; notify ; except ; except_pat ; special string; install Copies out-of-date files and 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 are created if they do not exist on the remote host. To help prevent disasters, a non-empty directory on a target host is never replaced with a regular file or a symbolic link. However, under the -R option a non-empty directory is removed if the corresponding file name 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. Processed November 19, 1991 RDIST(1,C) 4 RDIST(1,C) AIX TCP/IP User's Guide RDIST(1,C) 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. notify Mails the list of updated files (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 (name1@host, name2@host, ...). except Updates all of the files in the source list except for the files listed in namelist. This is usually used to copy everything in a directory except certain files. except_pat Like the except command except that pattern list is a list of regular expressions (see ed in the AIX Operating System Command Reference for details). If one of the patterns matches some string within a file name, that file is 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 \. special Specifies sh (see AIX Operating System Commands Reference) 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 are executed for every file updated or installed. The shell variable FILE is set to the current file name 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 after a program has been updated. The following is a short example: Processed November 19, 1991 RDIST(1,C) 5 RDIST(1,C) AIX TCP/IP User's Guide RDIST(1,C) 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 lash.$ ); IMAGEN = (ips dviimp catdvi) imagen: /usr/local/$IMAGEN -> arpa install /usr/local/lib; notify ralph; $ {FILES} :: stamp.cory notify root@cory; EXAMPLES To print update commands without executing them: $ rdist -n -f mydistfile $ _ To limit update to host2 and host3: $ rdist -f mydistfile -m host2 -m host3 $ _ To display a list of out-of-date files: $ rdist -v -f mydistfile $ _ MESSAGES A complaint about mismatch of rdist version numbers may really stem from some problem with starting your shell, such as you are in too many groups. Processed November 19, 1991 RDIST(1,C) 6 RDIST(1,C) AIX TCP/IP User's Guide RDIST(1,C) FILES distfile input command file host.equiv list of destination hosts .rhosts defines privileged remote hosts and users /tmp/rdist* temporary file for update lists RELATED INFORMATION sh, csh, refer to AIX Operating System Command Reference stat, refer to AIX Operating System Technical Reference Processed November 19, 1991 RDIST(1,C) 7