NAME

alterator-cmdline - command line interface to alteratord.

SYNOPSIS

alterator-cmdline [-ld] [-k name] command

DESCRIPTION

This is an utility to create a single request to system configuration backend from command line. Query result will be sent to stdout. Errors, e.g., exceptions from backends, will be sent to stderr.

Command format is:

backend arg1 value arg2 value2 ...

Backend typically returns one or more answers. Each answer is a set of attributes and values.

Output format is:
<empty line>
arg1:value1
arg2:value2
<empty line>
arg1:value3
arg2:value4
...

Each answer starts with an empty line.

alterator-cmdline prints all attributes and their values by default. You can use -k option to print specified attribute's value only. This is useful in shell scripts.

Output format in this case is:
value1
value3
...

Multiple answers are not separated.

There are two possible modes: basic and local.

In basic mode utility will try to connect to already running alteratord.

Local mode is designed for development. alterator-cmdline will try to stop already running alteratord and start it as its own subprocess; in its turn, alteratord's subprocess will work in local mode too and exit when alterator-cmdline exits. Because command line interface exits after receiving an answer from backend, you can only work with stateless backends in this mode.

EXAMPLE

alterator-cmdline -k name /users action list
alterator-cmdline /users name "test" action write gecos "test user"

EXIT CODE

On success zero is returned, otherwise non-zero status indicates request failure (backend exception or some internal error).

OPTIONS

-l, --local

Work in local mode.

-d, --debug

Turn on additional debug in Scheme interpreter. This is useful for debugging alterator-cmdline itself.

-k, --key <name>

Print values for the specified attribute only.

AUTHOR

Stanislav Ievlev <inger@altlinux.org>

SEE ALSO

alteratord(8)