Provided by: sup_20100519-3_amd64 
NAME
sup - software upgrade protocol
SYNOPSIS
sup [ flags ] [ supfile ] [ collection ...]
DESCRIPTION
Sup is a program used for upgrading collections of files from other machines to your machine. You
execute sup, the client program, which talks over the network using IP/TCP to a file server process. The
file server process cooperates with sup to determine which files of the collection need to be upgraded on
your machine.
Sup collections can have multiple releases. One use for such releases is to provide different versions of
the same files. At CMU, for example, system binaries have alpha, beta and default release corresponding
to different staging levels of the software. We also use release names default and minimal to provide
complete releases or subset releases. In both of these cases, it only makes sense to sup one release of
the collections. Releases have also been used in private or external sups to provide subsets of
collections where it makes sense to pick up several of the releases. For example the Mach 3.0 kernel
sources has a default release of machine independent sources and separate releases of machine dependent
sources for each supported platform.
In performing an upgrade, the file server constructs a list of files included in the specified release of
the collection. The list is sent to your machine, which determines which files are needed. Those files
are then sent from the file server. It will be most useful to run sup as a daemon each night so you will
continually have the latest version of the files in the needed collections.
The only required argument to sup is the name of a supfile. It must either be given explicitly on the
command line, or the -s flag must be specified. If the -s flag is given, the system supfile will be used
and a supfile command argument should not be specified. The list of collections is optional and if
specified will be the only collections upgraded. The following flags affect all collections specified:
-s As described above.
-t When this flag is given, sup will print the time that each collection was last upgraded, rather
than performing actual upgrades.
-u When this flag is given, sup will not try to restore the user access and modified times of files
in the collections from the server.
-S Operate silently printing messages only on errors.
-N Sup will trace network messages sent and received that implement the sup network protocol.
-P Sup will use a set of non-privileged network ports reserved for debugging purposes.
The remaining flags affect all collections unless an explicit list of collections are given with the
flags. Multiple flags may be specified together that affect the same collections. For the sake of
convenience, any flags that always affect all collections can be specified with flags that affect only
some collections. For example, sup -sde=coll1,coll2 would perform a system upgrade, and the first two
collections would allow both file deletions and command executions. Note that this is not the same
command as sup -sde=coll1 coll2, which would perform a system upgrade of just the coll2 collection and
would ignore the flags given for the coll1 collection.
-a All files in the collection will be copied from the repository, regardless of their status on the
current machine. Because of this, it is a very expensive operation and should only be done for
small collections if data corruption is suspected and been confirmed. In most cases, the -o flag
should be sufficient.
-b If the -b flag if given, or the backup supfile option is specified, the contents of regular files
on the local system will be saved before they are overwritten with new data. The file collection
maintainer can designate specific files to be worthy of backing up whenever they are upgraded.
However, such backup will only take place if you specify this flag or the backup option to allow
backups for a file collection on your machine. The backup mechanism will create a copy of the
current version of a file immediately before a new copy is received from the file server; the copy
is given the same name as the original file but is put into a directory called BACKUP within the
directory containing the original file. For example, /usr/sas/src/foo.c would have a backup copy
called /usr/sas/src/BACKUP/foo.c. There is no provision for automatically maintaining multiple
old versions of files; you would have to do this yourself.
-B The -B flag overrides and disables the -b flag and the backup supfile option.
-d Files that are no longer in the collection on the repository will be deleted if present on the
local machine and were put there by a previous sup. This may also be specified in a supfile with
the delete option.
-D The -D flag overrides and disables the -d flag and the delete supfile option.
-e Sup will execute commands sent from the repository that should be run when a file is upgraded. If
the -e flag is omitted, Sup will print a message that specifies the command to execute. This may
also be specified in a supfile with the execute option.
-E The -E flag overrides and disables the -e flag and the execute supfile option.
-f A list-only upgrade will be performed. Messages will be printed that indicate what would happen
if an actual upgrade were done.
-k Sup will check the modification times of files on the local disk before updating them. Only files
which are newer on the repository than on the local disk will be updated; files that are newer on
the local disk will be kept as they are. This may also be specified in a supfile with the keep
option.
-K The -K flag overrides and disables the -k flag and the keep supfile option.
-l Normally, sup will not upgrade a collection if the repository is on the same machine. This allows
users to run upgrades on all machines without having to make special checks for the repository
machine. If the -l flag is specified, collections will be upgraded even if the repository is
local.
-m Normally, sup used standard output for messages. If the -m flag if given, sup will send mail to
the user running sup, or a user specified with the notify supfile option, that contains messages
printed by sup.
-M <user>
like -m but send mail to the specified user.
-o Sup will normally only upgrade files that have changed on the repository since the last time an
upgrade was performed. That is, if the file in the repository is newer than the date stored in the
when file on the client. The -o flag, or the old supfile option, will cause sup to check all
files in the collection for changes instead of just the new ones.
-O The -O flag overrides and disables the -o flag and the old supfile option.
-z Normally sup transfers files directly without any other processing, but with the -z flag, or the
compress supfile option, sup will compress the file before sending it across the network and
uncompress it and restore all the correct file attributes at the receiving end.
-Z The -Z flag overrides and disables the -z flag and the compress supfile option.
-v Normally, sup will only print messages if there are problems. This flag causes sup to also print
messages during normal progress showing what sup is doing.
SETTING UP UPGRADES
Each file collection to be upgraded must have a base directory which contains a subdirectory called sup
that will be used by the sup program; it will be created automatically if you do not create it. Sup will
put subdirectories and files into this directory as needed.
Sup will look for a subdirectory with the same name as the collection within the sup subdirectory of the
base directory. If it exists it may contain any of the following files:
when.<rel-suffix>
This file is automatically updated by sup when a collection is successfully upgraded and contains
the time that the file server, or possibly supscan, created the list of files in the upgrade list.
Sup will send this time to the file server for generating the list of files that have been changed
on the repository machine.
refuse This file contains a list of files and directories, one per line, that the client is not
interested in that should not be upgraded.
lock This file is used by sup to lock a collection while it is being upgraded. Sup will get exclusive
access to the lock file using flock(2), preventing more than one sup from upgrading the same
collection at the same time.
last.<rel-suffix>
This file contains a list of files and directories, one per line, that have been upgraded by sup
in the past. This information is used when the delete option, or the -d flag is used to locate
files previously upgraded that are no longer in the collection that should be deleted.
Each file collection must also be described in one or more supfiles. When sup is executed, it reads the
specified supfile to determine what file collections and releases to upgrade. Each collection-release
set is described by a single line of text in the supfile; this line must contain the name of the
collection, and possibly one or more options separated by spaces. The options are:
release=releasename
If a collection contains multiple releases, you need to specify which release you want. You can
only specify one release per line, so if you want multiple releases from the same collections, you
will need to specify the collection more than once. In this case, you should use the use-rel-
suffix option in the supfile to keep the last and when files for the two releases separate.
base=directory
The usual default name of the base directory for a collection is described below (see FILES); if
you want to specify another directory name, use this option specifying the desired directory.
prefix=directory
Each collection may also have an associated prefix directory which is used instead of the base
directory to specify in what directory files within the collection will be placed.
host=hostname
hostbase=directory
System collections are supported by the system maintainers, and sup will automatically find out
the name of the host machine and base directory on that machine. However, you can also upgrade
private collections; you simply specify with these options the hostname of the machine containing
the files and the directory used as a base directory for the file server on that machine. Details
of setting up a file collection are given in the section below.
login=accountid
password=password
crypt=key
Files on the file server may be protected, and network transmissions may be encrypted. This
prevents unauthorized access to files via sup. When files are not accessible to the default
account (e.g. the anon anonymous account), you can specify an alternative accountid and password
for the file server to use on the repository host. Network transmission of the password will be
always be encrypted. You can also have the actual file data encrypted by specifying a key; the
file collection on the repository must specify the same key or else sup will not be able to
upgrade files from that collection. In this case, the default account used by the file server on
the repository machine will be the owner of the encryption key file (see FILES) rather than the
anon anonymous account.
notify=address
If you use the -m option to receive log messages by mail, you can have the mail sent to different
user, possibly on another host, than the user running the sup program. Messages will be sent to
the specified address, which can be any legal netmail address. In particular, a project
maintainer can be designated to receive mail for that project's file collection from all users
running sup to upgrade that collection.
backup As described above under the -b flag.
delete As described above under the -d flag.
execute
As described above under the -e flag.
keep As described above under the -k flag.
old As described above under the -o flag.
use-rel-suffix
Causes the release name to be used as a suffix to the last and when files. This is necessary
whenever you are supping more than one release in the same collection.
PREPARING A FILE COLLECTION REPOSITORY
A set of files residing on a repository must be prepared before sup client processes can upgrade those
files. The collection must be given a name and a base directory. If it is a private collection, client
users must be told the name of the collection, repository host, and base directory; these will be
specified in the supfile via the host and hostbase options. For a system-maintained file collection,
entries must be placed into the host list file and directory list file as described in supservers(8).
Within the base directory, a subdirectory must be created called sup . Within this directory there must
be a subdirectory for each collection using that base directory, whose name is the name of the
collection; within each of these directories will be a list file and possibly a prefix file, a host file,
an encryption key file, a log file and a scan file. The filenames are listed under FILES below.
prefix Normally, all files in the collection are relative to the base directory. This file contains a
single line which is the name of a directory to be used in place of the base directory for file
references.
host Normally, all remote host machines are allowed access to a file collection. If you wish to
restrict access to specific remote hosts for this collection, put each allowed hostname on a
separate line of text in this file. If a host has more than one name, only one of its names needs
to be listed. The name LOCAL can be used to grant access to all hosts on the local network. The
host name may be a numeric network address or a network name. If a crypt appears on the same line
as the host name, that crypt will be used for that host. Otherwise, the crypt appearing in the
crypt file, if any will be used.
crypt If you wish to use the sup data encryption mechanism, create an encryption file containing, on a
single line of text, the desired encryption key. Client processes must then specify the same key
with the crypt option in the supfile or they will be denied access to the files. In addition,
actual network transmission of file contents and filenames will be encrypted.
list This file describes the actual list of files to be included in this file collection, in a format
described below.
releases
This file describes any releases that the collection may have. Each line starts with the release
name and then may specify any of the following files: prefix=<dirname> to use a different parent
directory for the files in this release. list=<listname> to specify the list of files in the
release. scan=<scanfile> must be used in multi-release collections that are scanned to keep the
scan files for the different releases separate. host=<hostfile> to allow different host
restrictions for this release. next=<release> used to chain releases together. This has the
effect of making one release be a combination of several other releases. If the same file appears
in more than one chained release, the first one found will be used. If these files are not
specified for a release the default names: prefix,list,scan and host will be used.
scan This file, created by supscan, is the list of filenames that correspond to the instructions in the
list file. The scan file is only used for frequently updated file collections; it makes the file
server run much faster. See supservers(8) for more information.
lock As previously mentioned, this file is used to indicate that the collection should be locked while
upgrades are in progress. All file servers will try to get shared access to the lock file with
flock(2).
logfile
If a log file exists in the collection directory, the file server will append the last time an
upgrade was successfully completed, the time the last upgrade started and finished, and the name
of the host requesting the upgrade.
It should be noted that sup allows several different named collections to use the same base directory.
Separate encryption, remote host access, and file lists are used for each collection, since these files
reside in subdirectories <basedir>/sup/<coll.name>.
The list file is a text file with one command on each line. Each command contains a keyword and a number
of operands separated by spaces. All filenames in the list file are evaluated on the repository machine
relative to the host's base directory, or prefix directory if one is specified, and on your machine with
respect to the base, or prefix, directory for the client. The filenames below (except exec-command) may
all include wild-cards and meta-characters as used by csh(1) including *, ?, [...], and {...}. The
commands are:
upgrade filename ...
The specified file(s) (or directories) will be included in the list of files to be upgraded. If a
directory name is given, it recursively includes all subdirectories and files within that
directory.
always filename ...
The always command is identical to upgrade, except that omit and omitany commands do not affect
filenames specified with the always command.
omit filename ...
The specified file(s) (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 in the upgrade list. 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 filename, so a leading */, or a trailing /*, may be
necessary in the pattern.
backup filename ...
The specified file(s) are marked for backup; if they are upgraded and the client has specified the
backup option in the corresponding line of the supfile, then backup copies will be created as
described above. Directories may not be specified, and no recursive filename construction is
performed; you must specify the names of the specific files to be backed up before upgrading.
noaccount filename ...
The accounting information of the specified file(s) will not be preserved by sup. Accounting
information consists of the owner, group, mode and modified time of a file.
symlink filename ...
The specified file(s) are to be treated as symbolic links and will be transferred as such and not
followed. By default, sup will follow symbolic links.
rsymlink dirname ...
All symbolic links in the specified directory and its subdirectories are to be treated as symbolic
links. That is the links will be transferred and not the files to which they point.
execute exec-command (filename ...)
The exec-command you specified will be executed on the client process whenever any of the files
listed in parentheses are upgraded. A special token, %s, may be specified in the exec-command and
will be replaced by the name of the file that was upgraded. For example, if you say execute
ranlib %s (libc.a), then whenever libc.a is upgraded, the client machine will execute ranlib
libc.a. As described above, the client must invoke sup with the -e flag to allow the automatic
execution of command files.
include listfile ...
The specified listfiles will be read at this point. This is useful when one collection subsumes
other collections; the larger collection can simply specify the listfiles for the smaller
collections contained within it.
The order in which the command lines appear in the list file does not matter. Blank lines may appear
freely in the list file.
FILES
Files on the client machine for sup:
/etc/supfiles/coll.list
supfile used for -s flag
/etc/supfiles/coll.what
supfile used for -s flag when -t flag is also specified
/etc/supfiles/coll.host
host name list for system collections
<base-directory>/sup/<collection>/last<.release>
recorded list of files in collection as of last upgrade
<base-directory>/sup/<collection>/lock
file used to lock collection
<base-directory>/sup/<collection>/refuse
list of files to refuse in collection
<base-directory>/sup/<collection>/when<.release>
recorded time of last upgrade
/usr/sup/<collection>
default base directory for file collection
Files needed on each repository machine for the file server:
/etc/supfiles/coll.dir
base directory list for system collections
<base-directory>/sup/<collection>/crypt
data encryption key for a collection. the owner of this file is the default account used when data
encryption is specified
<base-directory>/sup/<collection>/host
list of remote hosts allowed to upgrade a collection
<base-directory>/sup/<collection>/list
list file for a collection
<base-directory>/sup/<collection>/lock
lock file for a collection
<base-directory>/sup/<collection>/logfile
log file for a collection
<base-directory>/sup/<collection>/prefix
file containing the name of the prefix directory for a collection
<base-directory>/sup/<collection>/scan
scan file for a collection
/usr/<collection>
default base directory for a file collection
SEE ALSO
supservers(8)
The SUP Software Upgrade Protocol, S. A. Shafer, CMU Computer Science Department, 1985.
EXAMPLE
<example>
BUGS
The encryption mechanism should be strengthened, although it's not trivial.
sup can delete files it should not with the delete option. This is because in the delete pass, it tries
to delete all files in the old list that don't exist in the new list. This is a problem when a directory
becomes a symlink to a hierarchy that contains the same names. Then sup will cross the symlink and start
deleting files and directories from the destination. This is not easily fixed. Don't use sup with
symlink/rsymlink and the delete option at the same time or *be careful*!
10/01/08 SUP(1)