.H 1 coshell

.B coshell

executes blocks of shell commands on lightly loaded hosts in the local network.

There is one

.B coshell

server per user.

This server runs as a daemon on the user's home host,

and only processes running on the home host have access to the server.

The server controls a background

.B ksh

shell process, initiated by

.BR rsh ,

on each of the connected hosts.

.P

.B coshell

is easy to use and administer.

The only privilege required for installation, administration or use is

.B rsh

access to the local hosts.

.B coshell

does requires a uniform file namespace across all hosts on the local network.

.P

.B nmake

and

.B gmake

users can take advantage of network execution with

no makefile modifications.

Shell level access is similar to but more efficient than

.B rsh

and allows host expression matching to replace the explicit host name argument.

.P

Factor of 5 compilation speedups are typical.

.P

To start your local daemon:

.EX

coshell +

.EE

To send

.B nmake

or

.B gmake

actions to

.B coshell

at concurrency level 8:

.EX

export COSHELL=coshell

export NPROC=8

.EE

To run shell commands on a lightly loaded host:

.EX

coshell -r - 'hostname; sort a > b' &

pid=$!

# other stuff

wait $pid

.EE

For interactive

.B coshell

status:

.EX

coshell -

coshell> s

.I "... status ..."

coshell> h

.I "... help ..."

coshell> q

.EE

.B package

generates static host information and

.B ss

lists the dynamic status of hosts on the local network.