Administration Guide

Understanding the supper list file

The following commands are used in the supper list file to define which files in a directory to include or exclude from a file collection. Refer to Directory and master files for information about the supper list.

Syntax rules

• Each command contains a keyword and a number of operands separated by spaces.
• The order of the commands does not matter and you can include blank lines between the commands.
• filename can be a single file, directory, or a list of files or directories separated by blanks. The names can include wild cards and metacharacters as used by csh, including *, ?, [....] and {...}. The value for filename must be specified as a relative path, such as ./etc/passwd or ./var/sysman.

Command keywords and operands

• upgrade filename

  The specified files or directories are included in the list of files to be upgraded unless they are also specified by an omit or omitany command or are in the refuse file. If a directory name is given, it recursively includes all subdirectories and files within that directory.

• always filename

  The specified files or directories are included in the list of files to be upgraded, regardless of the omit or omitany commands. They will not be included if they are in the refuse file.

• omit filename

  The specified files or directories will be excluded from the list of files to be upgraded. For example, by specifying upgrade ./usr/vision and omit ./usr/vision/exp, the generated list of files would include all subdirectories and files of ./usr/vision except ./usr/vision/exp and its subdirectories and files.

• omitany pattern

  The specified patterns are compared against the files specified in the upgrade entry. If a pattern matches, the file is omitted. The omitany command currently supports all wild card patterns except {...}. Also, the pattern must match the entire file name, so a leading */, or a trailing /*, might be necessary in the pattern.

• backup filename

  The specified files are marked for backup. If they are upgraded, backup copies are created. Directories cannot be specified and no recursive file name construction is performed; you must specify the names of the specific files to be backed up before upgrading.

• noaccount filename

  The accounting information (permissions and time stamps) of the specified files is not preserved.

• symlink filename

  The specified files are to be treated as symbolic links. They are transferred as links and not followed. By default, symbolic links are followed. symlinkall transfers all symbolic links.

• execute exec-command (filename)

  The command specified is executed on the client process whenever any of the files listed in parentheses are upgraded. A special token, %s, might be specified in the command and is replaced by the name of the file that was upgraded. For example, if you use execute ranlib %s (libc.a), whenever libc.a is upgraded, the client machine will execute ranlib libc.a..

• include listfile

  The specified listfile is read at this point. This is useful when one collection subsumes other collections; the larger collection can simply specify the files for the smaller collections contained within it.

Related information

The PSSP: Command and Technical Reference presents the full supper command syntax with all the parameters and options. It also explains how to use supper in batch or interactive mode.

You can find additional information about supper and SUP in their manual pages.