RCMD(1)

NAME
rcmd - backend driver for rcmd(3).

SYNOPSIS
rcmd [-Kdnx] [-k realm] [-l username] [-u localusername] host command

DESCRIPTION
rcmd executes command on host.

rcmd copies its standard input to the remote command, the standard output of the remote command to its standard output, and the standard error of the remote command to its standard error. Interrupt, quit and terminate signals are propagated to the remote command; rcmd normally terminates when the remote command does. The options are as follows:

-K  The -K option turns off all Kerberos authentication.

-d  The -d option turns on socket debugging (using setsockopt(2)) on the TCP sockets used for communication with the remote host.

-k  The -k option causes rcmd to obtain tickets for the remote host in realm instead of the remote host's realm as determined by krb_realmofhost(3).

-l  By default, the remote username is the same as the local username. The -l option allows the remote name to be specified. Kerberos authentication is used, and authorization is determined as in rlogin(1).

-u  The -u option allows the local username to be specified. Only the superuser is allowed to use this option.

-n  The -n option redirects input from the special device /dev/null (see the BUGS section of this manual page).

-x  The -x option turns on DES encryption for all data exchange. This may introduce a significant delay in response time.

Shell metacharacters which are not quoted are interpreted on local machine, while quoted metacharacters are interpreted on the remote machine. For example, the command

    rcmd otherhost cat remotefile >> localfile

appends the remote file remotefile to the local file localfile, while

    rcmd otherhost cat remotefile ">>" other_remotefile

appends remotefile to other_remotefile.

FILES
/etc/hosts

SEE ALSO
rsh(1), kerberos(3), krb_sendauth(3), krb_realmofhost(3)

HISTORY
The rcmd command appeared in NetBSD 1.3. It is mostly derived from rsh(1). It's purpose was to create a backend driver for rcmd(3) that would allow the users of rcmd(3) to no longer require super-user privileges.

BUGS
If you are using csh(1) and put a rcmd in the background without redirecting its input away from the terminal, it will block even if no reads are posted by the remote command. If no input is desired you should redirect the input of rcmd to /dev/null using the -n option.

You cannot run an interactive command (like rogue(6) or vi(1)) using rcmd use rlogin(1) instead.

Stop signals stop the local rcmd process only; this is arguably wrong, but currently hard to fix for reasons too complicated to explain here.