The distfile contains a sequence of entries that specify the files to be copied, the destination hosts, and what opera- tions to perform to do the updating. The first format is used for defining variables. The second format is used for distributing files to other hosts. The third format is used for making lists of files that have been changed since some given date. The destination list is the list of hosts to which these files are to be copied.
Labels are optional.
They are used to identify a command for partial updates. Newlines, tabs, and blanks are only used as separators and are otherwise ignored. They can be escaped with a backslash. The command list consists of zero or more commands of the following format. Each source file is copied to each host in the destination list.