[comp.bugs.4bsd] rdist needs a flag to set return-address for "notify"

david@ms.uky.edu (David Herron -- Resident E-mail Hack) (09/11/87)

Index:	rdist(1) in 4.3bsd

Problem: I use rdist to distribute some configuration files for
	the MMDF configurations on the various machines.  In order
	for rdist to be able to set funny ownerships and such for
	the remote file it needs to be run as root.  We have mail
	for root aliased to the whole group of people who run the
	system.  BUT mmdf related stuff is only interesting to me.
	If there are any errors in the mail, then the error messages
	will be sent back to our entire group, which isn't very nice.

Repeat-by: Set up an rdist file and say "notify postmaster;" at
	various places.  Then leave the smtp daemon on the remote
	machine down for a long time and notice the "attempting
	to contact remote host" type messages and finally the
	"could not contact" message ...

Fix: Should be trivial ... Find an unused flag and have something like:

	rdist -R postmaster@ms.uky.edu -f /usr/mmdf/mmdf.dist ...


-- 
----- David Herron,  Local E-Mail Hack,  david@ms.uky.edu, david@ms.uky.csnet
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