fitz@dirt.frc.ri.cmu.edu (Kerien Fitzpatrick) (03/07/90)
I have been RTFM'ing it for awhile and either I am clueless or rdist has what I would consider a significant flaw. After past experience I am leaning towards me being clueless. I have been setting up some dist files to handle pushing necessary files to all of our diskfull & diskless clients. Setting up a package for X11 distribution - I wanted the rdist install primitive to perform a binary check instead of just the date/time. I initially tried this line install -bv ; -- the result was that rdist started INSTALLING files in /-bv since root is running this. What I thought would happen is that rdist would do a binary comparison to determine if the files needed to be updated. After that I tried just the -b switch which acted as I thought it would and did a binary comparison and then tried to install new files. What I would like to do is to run this dist file every night and do a binary check to determine what files need to be updated, but not to do it - just send mail. Aside from this question - did anyone else find the rdist documentation lacking? Seems like a powerful package, but sparse documentation hides the full power. Anyone else out there using rdist that might have figured out some neat tricks? Send email and if there is enough interest I will summarize to the net. Thanks, Kerien Fitzpatrick Field Robotics Center Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA 15213 fitz@frc2.frc.ri.cmu.edu --------------------------------------------------------------------- opinions...I'll give you opinions - as our asst. director said "What is so difficult about writing software, just seems that all there is to it is hitting keys in the right sequence." -------------------------------------------------------------------- -- Kerien Fitzpatrick Field Robotics Center The Robotics Institute Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA 15213 (412)268-6564 Arpanet: fitz@rodan.frc.ri.cmu.edu
jms@romana.tymnet.com (Joe Smith) (03/14/90)
In article <5523@brazos.Rice.edu> fitz@dirt.frc.ri.cmu.edu (Kerien Fitzpatrick) writes: >X-Sun-Spots-Digest: Volume 9, Issue 67, message 11 >rdist has what I would consider a significant flaw. The man page for rdist is definitely flawed. >install -bv ; -- the result was that rdist started INSTALLING files in /-bv That one killed me as well. It put everything in /-Ry. Bug in rdist manual: Nowhere does it say that each option needs to have its own hyphen. "-Ry" does not work, "-R -y" does. Bug in the rdist program: It should accept consecutive option letters appended to a single hyphen. Bug in the built-in usage message: It says "r" instead of "R", and the "D" option is not mentioned in the man page. (Debugging?) Joe Smith (408)922-6220 | SMTP: jms@tardis.tymnet.com or jms@gemini.tymnet.com BT Tymnet Tech Services | UUCP: ...!{ames,pyramid}!oliveb!tymix!tardis!jms PO Box 49019, MS-C41 | PDP-10 support: My car's license plate is "POPJ P," San Jose, CA 95161-9019 | humorous dislaimer: "My Amiga speaks for me."