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Distributing files remotely over TCP/IP

Using rdist

The rdist syntax is as follows:

rdist [ -DFn ] [ -A num ] [ -a num ] [ -d var=value ] [ -l local_logopts ]

[ -L remote_logopts ] [ -f distfile ] [ -M maxproc ] [ -m host ]

[ -o distopts ] [ -t timeout ] [ name ... ]

rdist -DFn -c name ... [login@]host[ :dest]

rdist -Server

rdist -V

rdist reads commands from distfile to direct the updating of files and/or directories. If distfile is ``-'', the standard input is used. If no -f option is present, the program looks first for ``distfile'', then for ``Distfile'' to use as the input. If no names are specified on the command line, rdist will update 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 filenames conflict, it is assumed to be a label. These may be used together to update specific files using specific commands.

The -c option forces rdist to interpret the remaining arguments as a small distfile. The equivalent distfile is:

( name ... ) -> [login @ ]host
install [dest]
;

The -Server option is recognized to provide partial backward-compatible support for older versions of rdist that used this option to put rdist into server mode. If rdist is started with the -Server command line option, it will attempt to exec (run) the old version of rdist. This option will only work if rdist was compiled with the location of the old rdist (usually /usr/bin/ordist) and that program is available at runtime.

rdist uses the rcmd(TC) interface to access each target host. rdist will attempt to run the command

rdistd -S

on each target host. rdist does not specify the absolute pathname to rdistd on the target host to avoid imposing any policy on where rdistd must be installed on the target host. Therefore, rdistd must be somewhere in the $PATH of the user running rdist on the remote (target) host.


NOTE: If the basename of a file (the last component in the pathname) is ``.'', rdist assumes that the remote (destination) name is a directory. For example: ``/tmp/.'' means that /tmp should be a directory on the remote host.

For more about the rdist command options, see the rdist(TC) manual page.


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SCO OpenServer Release 5.0.7 -- 11 February 2003