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GNU cfengine

4.4 Copying files

The administration of a system often requires the copying of files. The reason for this is usually that we would like to distribute a copy of a particular file, from some master location and ensure that all of the copies are up to date. Another use for this is to install software from one directory (perhaps on a CD ROM) to another.

Cfagent helps this process by allowing you to copy a single file or a file tree, from one directory to another, perhaps checking the permissions and owners of a file to adjust the copies in some special way. The files are checked by cfagent using one of two methods.

• A date-stamp comparison with a master file, using last-change times, can be used to tell cfagent to recopy a file from the master if the master file is newer than the copy.

• A checksum can be computed for each file and compared with one for the master file. If the contents of the copy file differs in any way from the master, the file will be re-copied.

Cfengine allows you to do the following

• Copy a single file to another file in a different location, perhaps with a new name, new permissions and a different owner.

• Copy a single file to all users on the system, changing the owner of the file for each user automatically. (This could be used to distribute and update standard setup files.)

• Recursively copy an entire file tree, omitting files which match a list of wildcard-patterns, or linking certain files instead of copying.