[Info-vax] Long uptime cut short by Hurricane Sandy

[Paul Sture]

In article 
<2882f521-e75f-4e22-a3c1-577b678bd530 at n2g2000yqg.googlegroups.com>,
 AEF <spamsink2001 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> I tried to write a script once that changed directory. It didn't work.
> Why? Because it forked itself to oblivion. I was told to try it with a
> period and a space in front it. Fine, but something else broke. I
> figured I should try it another time. And even if I write such a
> thing, I have to copy it to hundreds of servers running various
> versions of Solaris and Red Hat.

Have you come across rdist?  

http://linux.die.net/man/1/rdist

"Rdist is a program to maintain identical copies of files over multiple 
hosts. It preserves the owner, group, mode, and mtime of files if 
possible and can update programs that are executing. Rdist reads 
commands from distfile to direct the updating of files and/or 
directories."

rdist isn't there on OS X but provided you have Xcode it's a simple 
matter of downloading the source and compiling.

Or use macports or Homebrew[1] if you prefer those.  To install on 
Scientific Linux and openSUSE, yum and zypper respectively do the job.

Take note of the destfile and message logging options.

[1] Homebrew ‹ MacPorts driving you to drink? Try Homebrew!
http://mxcl.github.com/homebrew/

Homebrew demystified:
http://mac.tutsplus.com/tutorials/terminal/homebrew-demystified-os-xs-ult
imate-package-manager/

-- 
Paul Sture