From owner-freebsd-hackers Mon Feb 5 10:39:29 1996 Return-Path: owner-hackers Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) id KAA16185 for hackers-outgoing; Mon, 5 Feb 1996 10:39:29 -0800 (PST) Received: from localhost.cdrom.com (localhost.cdrom.com [127.0.0.1]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) with SMTP id KAA16180 Mon, 5 Feb 1996 10:39:27 -0800 (PST) Message-Id: <199602051839.KAA16180@freefall.freebsd.org> X-Authentication-Warning: freefall.freebsd.org: Host localhost.cdrom.com [127.0.0.1] didn't use HELO protocol To: Andrew Heybey cc: Doug Rabson , "Karl Denninger, MCSNet" , "Jordan K. Hubbard" , hackers@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: And the winner is! In-reply-to: Your message of "Mon, 05 Feb 1996 10:22:05 EST." <199602051522.KAA02892@grapenuts.bellcore.com> Date: Mon, 05 Feb 1996 10:39:27 -0800 From: "Justin T. Gibbs" Sender: owner-hackers@FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > dfr> It seems like one could use sup to keep systems in sync. > dfr> Basically, you would run a supserver on the 'code server' and > dfr> regularly sup the client systems against it. The sup config > dfr> files allow you to do stuff like run ranlib on /usr/lib/lib*.a, > dfr> execute newaliases when /etc/aliases changes, don't take > dfr> specific files from /etc/ which are per-system. > >Yes, sup would work and has some advantages (for one thing reconcile >needs the server to be NFS mounted). For me it was a matter of being >familiar with reconcile. Also, reconcile does several things that I >don't know if sup can do: > >1. Map from one file name to another. For example, one could have >/etc/sysconfig.CLIENT (since the server probably wants a different >configuration in its /etc/sysconfig) which gets copied to >/etc/sysconfig on the clients. [Speaking of which, if one wants to >set up several machines, it is somewhat obnoxious that the hostname >and interfaces are hard-wired in sysconfig. I like hostname.* files >better instead of running sed on sysconfig. Just MHO.] SUP handles this with the "rename" command. >2. Reconcile won't touch files on the client that have changed. Not >just files that are newer on the client (which is what I gather sup >can do (from a cursory inspection of the man page)). Reconcile keeps >a database of the mtimes (or ctimes, I'm not sure) of the files so as >tell if the file has changed on the client. I happen to like this >feature--if something changes on the client it is probably for a >reason and one doesn't want the change wiped out just because the rest >of the client's file system is being kept up to date. Depends on the application, but I can see where this could be useful. >3. Reconcile can automatically create symlinks to the server instead >of copying if you want to save disk space on the client. (Again, this >assumes a LAN and NFS mounting of the server.) For example on the >machines I set up, /usr/src -> /server/user/src. I just put symlinks into the SUP collection. >andrew -- Justin T. Gibbs =========================================== FreeBSD: Turning PCs into workstations ===========================================