From owner-freebsd-hackers Mon Feb 5 04:27:26 1996 Return-Path: owner-hackers Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) id EAA23606 for hackers-outgoing; Mon, 5 Feb 1996 04:27:26 -0800 (PST) Received: from minnow.render.com (render.demon.co.uk [158.152.30.118]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) with SMTP id EAA23151 for ; Mon, 5 Feb 1996 04:22:51 -0800 (PST) Received: (from dfr@localhost) by minnow.render.com (8.6.12/8.6.9) id MAA13243; Mon, 5 Feb 1996 12:22:21 GMT Date: Mon, 5 Feb 1996 12:22:18 +0000 (GMT) From: Doug Rabson To: Andrew Heybey cc: "Karl Denninger, MCSNet" , "Jordan K. Hubbard" , hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: And the winner is! In-Reply-To: <199602031414.JAA01796@grapenuts.bellcore.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-hackers@freebsd.org Precedence: bulk On Sat, 3 Feb 1996, Andrew Heybey wrote: > [Please excuse the preceding fumble-fingered screw-up sent to the > list. C-c C-c (mh-send-letter) is very close to C-x C-x on the > keyboard.] > > karl> No, we want to be able to have a "code server" which can load, > karl> and keep updated, multiple machines. That is, when I have > karl> system #15 to load, I want to plug in the Ethernet, point the > karl> new box at the server, and say "go fetch your load, kid". > > karl> Also, the ability to somehow have this update process > karl> automated (so that I only have to make a code change on *ONE* > karl> machine) would be nice. > > When I was running 1.1.5.1, I had something like this set up using a > program called reconcile (ftp://mercury.lcs.mit.edu/pub/shep/reconcile-*). > > Reconcile is sort of like rdist in reverse (client pull instead of > server push) only better (IMHO). I hacked the boot floppy to (after > newfs'ing the disk(s)) ask for enough information to configure the > network interface then NFS mount the server and build the file system. > [BTW I can't take any credit for this idea--Tim Shepard wrote > reconcile and he and several others set up a network full of uVaxen > this way at LCS.] > > This is all broken now that I'm running 2.something, but I'll be > getting a few new machines soon so I might be motivated to resurrect > it. If anyone is interested (and if I actually do it) I would be > willing to give away the reconcile config files and boot floppy hacks > that I do. It seems like one could use sup to keep systems in sync. Basically, you would run a supserver on the 'code server' and regularly sup the client systems against it. The sup config files allow you to do stuff like run ranlib on /usr/lib/lib*.a, execute newaliases when /etc/aliases changes, don't take specific files from /etc/ which are per-system. -- Doug Rabson, Microsoft RenderMorphics Ltd. Mail: dfr@render.com Phone: +44 171 251 4411 FAX: +44 171 251 0939