rdist.1 (2010 09)
r
rdist(1) rdist(1)
NAME
rdist - remote file distribution program
SYNOPSIS
rdist [ -bhinqvwyMRD ][-f
distfile ][-d var=value ][-m host ][label... ]
rdist [ -bhinqvwyMRD ] -c name... [login @]host[:dest]
DESCRIPTION
rdist facilitates the maintaining of identical copies of files over multiple hosts. It preserves the owner,
group, mode, and modification time of files if possible and can update programs that are executing.
-f distfile Specify a distfile for
rdist to execute. distfile contains a sequence of entries that specify
the files to be copied, the destination hosts, and what operations to perform to do the updat-
ing. The format of distfile is described in detail later. If distfile is
-, the standard input is
used. If no
-f option is present, the program looks first for a file called
distfile, then
Distfile in the local host’s working directory to use as the input.
-d var=value
Define var to have value . The
-d option is used to define variable definitions in the distfile.
value can be an empty string, one name, or a list of name separated by tabs and/or spaces
and enclosed by a pair of parentheses. However, if the variable specified is already defined
in the distfile, the
-d option has no effect (because the distfile overrides the
-d option).
-D Display debugging information onto standard output.
-m host Limit which machines are to be updated. Multiple -m arguments can be given to limit
updates to a subset of hosts that are listed in the distfile . For more information on the host
format, refer to the section destination_list.
label Label of a command to execute. The label must be defined in distfile .
-c name... The -c option forces rdist to interpret the remaining arguments as a small distfile. The
equivalent distfile is as follows.
( name ... ) -> [login@]host
install [dest];
Note: In IPv6 enabled systems to use the -c option with an IPv6 address, the IPv6
address has to be enclosed in a square bracket pair ([ and ]). An example invocation of
rdist with the -c option and an IPv6 address is as shown below:
rdist -c name user@[IPv6 address ]:dest
If the IPv6 address is not enclosed within square brackets, the first occurrence of a colon (
:)
is treated as the separator between the hostname and the path .
-n Print the commands without executing them. This option is useful for debugging distfile .
-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
truly 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. rdist will normally try to maintain the link structure of files
being transferred and warn the user if it cannot find all the links.
-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 direc-
tory structure of the files being copied instead of flattening the directory structure. For
example, renaming a list of files such as (dir1/f1 and 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 (see stat (2)) disagree. The
-y option causes rdist not to update files that are younger than the master copy. This
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