nrdist(1)nrdist(1)NAMEnrdist - Remote file distribution client program
SYNOPSIS
/usr/bin/nrdist [-DFn] [-A num] [-a num] [-d var=value] [-l <local
logopts>] [-L <remote logopts>] [-f distfile] [-M maxproc] [-m host]
[-odistopts] [-t timeout] [name...]
/usr/bin/nrdist -DFn-c name ... [login@]host[:dest]
/usr/bin/nrdist -Server
/usr/bin/nrdist -V
OPTIONS
Sets the minimum number of free files (inodes) on a filesystem that
must exist for nrdist to update or install a file. Sets the minimum
amount of free space (in bytes) on a filesystem that must exist for
nrdist to update or install a file. Turns on debugging output.
Defines var to have value. This option is used to define or override
variable definitions in the distfile. The value parameter can be an
empty string, one name, or a list of names surrounded by parentheses
and separated by tabs or spaces. Does not fork any child nrdist pro‐
cesses. All clients are updated sequentially. Sets the name of the
distfile to use to be distfile. If distfile is specified as - (dash),
read from standard input (stdin). Sets local logging options. See MES‐
SAGE LOGGING for details on the syntax for logopts. Sets remote log‐
ging options. The logopts is the same as for local logging except the
values are passed to the remote server (rdistd). See MESSAGE LOGGING
for details on the syntax for logopts. Sets the maximum number of
simultaneously running child nrdist processes to num. The default is 4.
Limits which machines are to be updated. Multiple -m arguments can be
given to limit updates to a subset of the hosts listed in the distfile.
You can also specify an IPv6 address or addresses for machine. Prints
the commands without executing them. This option is useful for debug‐
ging distfile. Specifies the dist options to enable. The distopts is a
comma-separated list of the following options: 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 Any files that are out of date will be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. 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,
rdisting a list of files such as /path/dir1/f1 and /path/dir2/f2 to
/tmp/dir would create files /tmp/dir/path/dir1/f1 and
/tmp/dir/path/dir2/f2 instead of /tmp/dir/dir1/f1 and /tmp/dir/dir2/f2.
Automatically exclude executable files that are in a.out(4) format from
being checked or updated. Younger mode. Files are normally updated if
their mtime and size (see stat(2)) disagree. This option causes nrdist
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. Binary comparison. Perform a binary comparison and update files
if they differ rather than comparing dates and sizes. Follow symbolic
links. Copy the file that the link points to rather than the link
itself. Ignore unresolved links. The nrdist command will normally try
to maintain the link structure of files being transferred and warn the
user if all the links cannot be found. Do not check or update files on
target host that reside on NFS filesystems. Enable check on target
host to see if a file resides on a read-only filesystem. If a file
does, then no checking or updating of the file is attempted. If the
target on the remote host is a symbolic link, but is not on the master
host, the remote target will be left a symbolic link. This behavior is
generally considered a bug in the original version of nrdist, but is
present to allow compatibility with older versions. Quiet mode. Files
that are being modified are normally printed on standard output. This
option suppresses this. 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 maintain‐
ing truly identical copies of directories. Do not check user ownership
of files that already exist. The file ownership is only set when the
file is updated. Do not check group ownership of files that already
exist. The file ownership is only set when the file is updated. Do not
check file and directory permission modes. The permission mode is only
set when the file is updated. Do not descend into a directory. Nor‐
mally nrdist will recursively check directories. If this option is
enabled, any files listed in the file list in the distfile that are
directories are not recursively scanned. Only the existence, ownership,
and mode of the directory are checked. Use the numeric group id (gid)
to check group ownership instead of the group name. Use the numeric
user id (uid) to check user ownership instead of the user name. Save
files that are updated instead of removing them. Any target file that
is updates is first rename from file to file.OLD. Sets the timeout
period (in seconds) for waiting for responses from the remote nrdist
server. The default is 900 seconds. Print version information and
exit.
DESCRIPTION
The nrdist command is a program to maintain identical copies of files
over multiple hosts. It preserves the owner, group, mode, and modifica‐
tion time of files if possible and can update programs that are execut‐
ing. The nrdist command reads commands from distfile to direct the
updating of files or directories, or both. If distfile is a - (dash),
the standard input is used.
If no -f option is specified, the program looks first for distfile,
then Distfile to use as the input. If no file names are specified on
the command line, nrdist updates all of the files and directories
listed in distfile. Otherwise, the argument is read as the name of a
file to be updated or a command to execute. If the name of the file
specified by the file argument is the same as the name of a command,
the nrdist command treats the file name as a command. These may be
used together to update specific files using specific commands.
The -c option forces nrdist to interpret the remaining arguments as a
small distfile. The equivalent distfile is as follows.
( name ... ) -> [login@]host install [dest] ;
If you want to specify an IPv6 address for host, you must prefix the
address with the \[ (backslash, left bracket) characters and terminate
the address with the \] (backslash, right bracket) characters.
The -Server option provides partial backward compatible support for
older versions of nrdist that used this option to put nrdist into
server mode. If nrdist is started with the -Server command line option,
it attempts to exec (run) the old version of rdist. This option will
only work if nrdist was compiled with the location of the old rdist
(usually /usr/old/rdist) and that program is available at run time.
The nrdist command uses the rcmd(3) interface to access each target
host. The nrdist command attempts to run the rdistd -S command on each
target host. The nrdist command does not specify the absolute pathname
to rdistd on the target host in order to avoid imposing any policy on
where rdistd must be installed on target host. Therefore, rdistd must
be somewhere in the $PATH of the user running nrdist on the remote
(target) host.
MESSAGE LOGGING
The nrdist command uses a collection of predefined message facilities
that each contain a list of message types specifying which types of
messages to send to that facility. The local client (nrdist) and the
remote server (rdistd) each maintain their own copy of what types of
messages to log to what facilities.
The -l logopts option to nrdist tells nrdist what logging options to
use locally. The -L logopts option to nrdist tells nrdist what logging
options to pass to the remote rdistd server.
The form of logopts should be of form facility=types:facility=types...
The valid facility names are: Sends messages to standard output. Sends
messages to a file. To specify the file name, use the following for‐
mat: file=filename=types.
For example, file=/tmp/rdist.log=all,debug. Uses the syslogd(8)
facility. Uses the internal nrdist notify facility. This facil‐
ity is used in conjunction with the notify keyword in a distfile
to specify what messages are mailed to the notify address.
The types should be a comma separated list of message types. Each mes‐
sage type specified enables that message level. This is unlike the
syslog(3) system facility which uses an ascending order scheme. The
following are the valid types: Things that change. This includes files
that are installed or updated in some way. General information. Gen‐
eral info about things that change. This includes things like making
directories which are needed in order to install a specific target, but
which are not explicitly specified in the distfile. Normal errors that
are not fatal. Fatal errors. Warnings about errors which are not as
serious as nerror type messages. Debugging information. All but debug
messages.
Here is a sample command line option:
-l stdout=all:syslog=change,notice:file=/tmp/rdist.log=all
This entry will set local message logging to have all but debug mes‐
sages sent to standard output, change and notice messages will be sent
to syslog(3), and all messages will be written to the file
/tmp/rdist.log.
DISTFILES
The distfile 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.
<variable_name> = <name_list> [label:] <source_list> -> <destina‐
tion_list> <command_list> [label:] <source list> :: <timestamp_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 since some given date.
The source_list specifies a list of files or directories on the local
host which are to be used as the master copy for distribution. The des‐
tination_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 for‐
mat) or the file is newer than the timestamp_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 a # (number sign) and end with a new‐
line.
Variables to be expanded begin with a $ (dollar sign) followed by one
character or a name enclosed in curly braces (see EXAMPLES).
The source and destination lists one of the following formats:
<name> ( <zero or more names separated by white-space> )
If you want to specify an IPv6 address or addresses for destina‐
tion_list, you must enclose each address with the [] (bracket) charac‐
ters.
These simple lists can be modified by using one level of set addition,
subtraction, or intersection as follows:
list - list list + list list & list
If additional modifications are needed (for example, all servers and
client machines except for the Tru64 UNIX machines), the list will have
to be explicitly constructed in steps using temporary variables.
The shell meta-characters [,],,},*, and ? are recognized and expanded
(on the local host only) in the same way as csh(1). They can be escaped
with a \ (backslash). The ~ (tilde) character is also expanded in the
same way as csh, but is expanded separately on the local and destina‐
tion hosts. When the -owhole option is used with a file name that
begins with a ~, everything except the home directory is appended to
the destination name. File names that do not begin with a / (slash) or
a ~ 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 <options> opt_dest_name ; notify <name_list>
; except <name_list> ; except_pat <pattern_list> ; special
<name_list> string ; cmdspecial <name_list> string ;
The install command is used to copy out-of-date files or directories.
Each source file is copied to each host in the destination list. Direc‐
tories are recursively copied in the same way. The opt_dest_name argu‐
ment is an optional argument 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. The -odistopts option, as specified under OPTIONS, has the
same semantics as 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 notify command is used to mail the list of files updated (and any
errors that may have occurred) to the listed names. If no @ (at sign)
appears in the name, the destination host is appended to the name (for
example, name1@host, name2@host, ...).
The except command is used to update all of the files in the source
list except for the files listed in name_list. This is usually used to
copy everything in a directory, except certain files.
The except_pat command is like the except command except that pat‐
tern_list is a list of regular expressions (see ed(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
doubled to become part of the regular expression. Variables are
expanded in pattern_list, but not shell file pattern matching charac‐
ters. To include a $ (dollar sign), it must be escaped with \ (back‐
slash).
The special command is used to specify sh commands that are to be exe‐
cuted on the remote host after the file in name_list is updated or
installed. If the name_list is omitted, the shell commands will be exe‐
cuted for every file updated or installed. string starts and ends with
" (double quote) and can cross multiple lines in distfile. Separate
multiple commands to the shell with a ; (semicolon). Commands are exe‐
cuted in the user's home directory on the host being updated. The spe‐
cial command can be used to rebuild private databases after a program
has been updated. The following environment variables are set for each
special command: The full pathname of the local file that was just
updated. The full pathname of the remote file that was just updated.
The cmdspecial command is similar to the special command, except it is
executed only when the entire command is completed instead of after
each file is updated. The list of files is placed in the environment
variable $FILES. Each file name in $FILES is separated by a ; (semi‐
colon).
If a hostname ends in a + (plus sign), the plus sign is stripped off
and NFS checks are disabled. This is equivalent to disabling the
-ochknfs option just for this one host.
The following is an example of a distfile:
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} -> ${HOSTS}
install -oremove,chknfs ;
except /usr/lib/${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 ;
NOTES
If the basename of a file (the last component in the pathname) is
(period), nrdist assumes the remote (destination) name is a directory.
For example, /tmp/. means that /tmp is a directory on the remote host.
The following options are still recognized for backwards compatibility:
-v -N -O -q -b -r -R -s -w -y -h -i -x
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
Name of temporary directory to use. Default is /tmp.
FILES
Input command file. Temporary file for update lists.
SEE ALSO
Commands: sh(1), csh(1), rdist(1)
Functions: stat(2), rcmd(3)nrdist(1)