Gee. And I was just thinking of simple notification, then letting the admin
do the work. :-)
At 10:54 AM 06/15/2001 -0500, David Douthitt wrote
>Mike Sensney wrote:
>
>> A LEAF box should be able to check for updates and inform its administrator
>> that updates are needed.
>
>This is a great idea, and one I like. However, there are several
>things that would be needed before something like this could be truly
>useful:
>
>* A centralized package server (FTP, HTTP, whatever) or servers
>* A method of notification (possibly user definable). An SMB pop-up,
>email, pager, whatever.
>* A way of executing "pre-removal" "post-removal" etc. scripts in
>order to prepare the system for a new binary - replacing sysklogd
>would not be nice if you didn't restart it.
>* A straight-forward way of checking versions or dates.
>* Space to do downloads as necessary
>
>For the server, I see sourceforge and ibiblio.org filling these
>roles. For notification, this becomes a part of the program, as does
>date checking. The scripts I mentioned we've talked about before; I
>lean towards adding a new (special) file to lrp packages like so:
>
><pkg>.sh Takes arguments: one of:
> preinst - prior to installation
> postinst - after installation
> preremoval - prior to deletion
> postremoval - after removal
>
> This file would then be called by the package management
>system at the appropriate time. Using the "#!" convention, it could
>run with any available shell, though the shell must be available at
>the time.
