Using HP-UX Internet Services (August 2003)

Distributing Files Using rdist
Creating the distfile
Chapter 542
Creating the distfile
The distfile used by the master host contains a sequence of entries
that specify the files to be copied, the destination hosts, and the
operations to be performed for updating the host. The distfile is an
ASCII file, therefore you can create the distfile, which is an ASCII file,
using any text editor. The structure of a distfile is similar to the make
program.
The following syntax rules apply to the distfile:
• Newlines, tabs, and blanks are used as separators and are ignored.
• Comments begin with a pound sign (#) and end with a newline.
• Shell meta characters ([, ], {, }, *, and ?) expand on the master host in
the same way as with the csh command. Use a backslash (\) to
escape a meta character. (For more information, type man 1 csh at
the HP-UX prompt.)
• File names that do not begin with a forward slash (/) or tilde (˜) are
assumed to be relative to the user’s home directory on each remote
host.
A distfile contains entries of the following types:
• Definitions of variables that are used with distfile commands.
• Commands that distribute files to other hosts.
• Commands to create lists of files that have changed since a specified
date.
Each of these types of entries is described in the following sections.
Variable Definitions
You can use variables to represent a list of items, such as the names of
files to be distributed or the remote hosts to be updated. You can define
variables anywhere in the distfile, but they are usually grouped
together at the beginning of the file. Variables are then used in command
entries. The format for defining variables is as follows:
variable_name = name_list
where,