Package distribution hassles - a proposal.

[John H Terpstra]

On Mon, 4 Mar 2002, Max TenEyck Woodbury wrote:

> Update:
>
>   The search is similar to but not identical with what the RPMFIND
> server must perform. I tried an RPMFIND on samba from my machine
> and only got a partial list of RedHat updates. Nothing on any other
> distribution. I'll look into (literally) RPMFIND and see if it can
> be made to return information on more than one distribution source
> and on all variants of samba packages and sub-packages. If that
> doesn't work out, I'll write a parser for results of an FTP ls -lR.

You may want to check out http://www.tuxfinder.com. This is a magic site.

>
>   Web page formatting: I'll check out the RPM2HTML package.
>
>   Actual build process:
>     Inputs: (Preliminary)
>       A directory where the build is to be performed.
>       Two directories where the build is to be tested.
>       A URL for the distribution to be used. (From search above)
>       A URL for updates to be used if any. (Also from above)
>       A URL for the source package.
>       A list of additional packages needed not specified in the rpm.
>       Two directories where the binary packages are to be placed.
>       A list of binary package combinations to be tested
>     Process: (Preliminary)
>       1) verify clean build, template and test directories
>       2) setup initial build sub-directory structure
>       3) hard link basic tools
>       4) copy builds script and .src.rpm into build directory
>       5) chroot to build directory
>       6) init RPM database
>       7) install any packages required by the .rpm and extras list
>       8) exit chroot
>       9) copy build environment to template environment
>       10) chroot to build environment again
>       11) install any additional packages needed for the build
>       12) rpmbuild ...
>       13) exit chroot
>       14) copy generated .rpms to save area
>       15) for each binary package set to be tested
>       16) build test environment from template environment
>       17) copy binary package(s) into test environment
>       18) chroot to test environment
>       19) install binary package(s)
>       20) exit chroot
>       21) verify proper installation
>       22) delete test environment
>       22) next binary package set
>       23) delete template and build environments.
>       24) generate status report for human review.
>       25) somebody checks the status report and copies tested
>           packages to distribution directory if they are OK.
>     Notes: the duke linix user's group has a general purpose
>       package installer that finds dependencies and installs
>       packages to meet those requirements. It may need some
>       adaptation.
>
> mtew
>

Looking forward to the next step. How shall we proceed?

- John T.