Re: debian in a lab
Christoph, ..., I usually install [packages] ... in a directory /usr/local/packages/package_name ... I use a script to move files into the correct directories. The appeal of such an approach is [ability to] use any packages ... without [installing] anything locally except a set of well-defined links[,] and without using up local storage or worrying about updates. ... this is a way of providing software to people without having to be root on their machines and thus without being responsible for their mistakes... I found that this works extremely well with most packages. Is anyone thinking of adding a concept like this to standard Debian as an option? Yes! Ray Ingles and myself are currently defining this concept and would appreciate your help. Please see our prior mail (sent 4/15/97) Re: DEITY TEAM -- REQUEST FOR FUNCTIONALITY and COMMENTS. Robert Meier FANUC Robotics North America, Inc. Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Voice: 1-810-377-7469 Fax: 1-810-377-7363
dselect deity and debian in the lab
Hello, I'd like to suggest that the deity team take into consideration the open problem of installing and maintaining packages accross NFS-mounted volumes (see the recent thread debian in the lab in this list). I believe that making deity NFS-aware will take the debian packaging system one further step ahead of competition! Cheers, -- Pedro I. Sanchez Product Manager CTI Datacom Inc. 514.683.6363 x31
Re: debian in a lab
On 9 Apr 1997, Graeme Stewart wrote:
The ideal situation, I think, would be for dselect to have an option
where by it can be told that certain directories are NFS mounted.
It should then do the installation as normal, but not copy files to
these directories (or attempt to delete them upon uninstalling).
Would that be hard to implement? I don't think so, though I never
got farther than thinking... If one wanted to be really clever,
one could get dselect on a client to download the server's list of
installed packages and issue a warning if the client tried to install
a different version of the package or a package that the server didn't
have. I think that with those sort of changes Debian could be made
very user friendly to NFS networks like ours.
that's a really good idea.
what is needed is a dpkg --option or wrapper script which communicates
with a specified NFS server (ssh $SERVER dpkg --get-selections?) and
extracts it's list of installed packages.
For packages installed on the server but not on the client, it should
install ONLY the config files package.{pre,post}{rm,inst} scripts,
plus any files/directories NOT in NFS mounted directories (e.g. /bin,
/sbin, /var, /etc)
There should be a command line option or config file for specifying which
directories are NFS, and an exclusion list for those which aren't (to
allow for situations like /usr is NFS, /usr/local is not). Alternatively,
dpkg can simply be told to ignore errors caused by a file or directory
being read-only.
The {pre,post}inst scripts should be run at install time on the client
machine.
For packages which are on the client but not on the server, it should
run the {pre,post}rm scripts and delete files which are not on NFS
mounted disks.
this should be as automated as possible, so that when the server is
upgraded or new packages are installed it should be possible to use a for
loop wrapper around rsh or ssh or something to automatically update the
clientsbut that depends a lot on the scripts in the individual
packages.
craig
Re: debian in a lab
Hi, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Kay Nettle) wrote: We're planning on installing debian in a lab of about 50 machines and were wondering if anyone had come up with a good way to install it over the net. We want to spend as little time on each machine as possible. We have been running about a dozen Linux PC as desktop workstations for several years in an IBM RS/6000 AIX environment. Back in 1993, we simply installed Slackware on a master PC, tar'red and zip'ed the disk, put this on one of our workstation, and then NFS-mounted it from a bootdisk and untar'ed onto every new PC. The tar-files are about 60 Megs for a basic system, and the installation takes around 20 minutes. A script fixes local things like hostnames, IP addresses, and the XFree86 configuration. (I could add here that for desktop work a 32 MB Pentium outperforms any AIX desktop system we have here). Recently, with the arrival of some Pentiums, I started using Debian packages. To avoid putting all packages on each disk, I usually install them (except for basic system packages) in a directory /usr/local/packages/package_name which typically looks like this: lx601:/usr/local/packages/pine# ls -l total 5 drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 1024 Mar 10 07:10 DEBIAN-pine_3.96L-0/ drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 1024 Mar 10 07:10 etc/ drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 1024 Mar 10 07:10 usr.bin/ drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 1024 Mar 10 07:10 usr.doc.pine/ drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 1024 Mar 10 07:10 usr.man.man1/ I use a script to move files into the correct directories. In theory, I could then mount /usr/local/packages on each client and have a script that automatically checks which packages are installed and update the links locally. (In praxi, this is still done manually.) I usually look at the preinst and postinst scripts and run them by hand on the master machine. Anything they modify or create should also be in the package directory. The appeal of such an approach is that any Debian user on our net could mount this directory and use any packages he wants without ever having to install anything locally except a set of well-defined links. And without using up local storage or worrying about updates. (If he needs different configurations, he can just replace a link in /etc by a real file.) Some people here are using similar schemes to provide software for other platforms centrally. From an institutional point of view, this is a way of providing software to people without having to be root on their machines and thus without being responsible for their mistakes... I found that this works extremely well with most packages. Is anyone thinking of adding a concept like this to standard Debian as an option? -Christoph Christoph Best[EMAIL PROTECTED] Institute for Theoretical Physics Johann Wolfgang Goethe University 60054 Frankfurt am Main, Germany Using TSO is like kicking a dead whale down the beach.
debian in a lab
Hi, We're planning on installing debian in a lab of about 50 machines and were wondering if anyone had come up with a good way to install it over the net. We want to spend as little time on each machine as possible. Each machine will be on the net. We've thought of a couple of ways to do this, like: creating a template machine and then stuffing the disk image on all the others, or just using the normal debian install (but we're worried we'd have to spend to much time on each machine). There are a couple of other questions we have as well. Has anyone nfs mounted /usr and if so how do you handle updates to packages? Also, what is the process for creating local packages that override standard packages? Thanks, Kay
Re: debian in a lab
It seems to me the best way to do this would be to use the ftp install but that may take to much time so making a template machine and then copying everything from that machine to all the others (cp -Rap) would work. If you can open the machines and get the drives out this wouldn't be to bad, if not you would have to at least get a kernel and filesystem and nis working first, unless you feel like ftping a 300 meg file across the room, that has been done, if you are going to use nfs instead of ftp then why not just install everything. I had /usr nfs mounted for about 10 minutes one time and it was slow I could run ls and go get a coke. The best way to keep up with what is in /usr would probally be nis. Sorry for the rambling. In message [EMAIL PROTECTED] you wrote: Hi, We're planning on installing debian in a lab of about 50 machines and were wondering if anyone had come up with a good way to install it over the net. We want to spend as little time on each machine as possible. Each machine will be on the net. We've thought of a couple of ways to do this, like: creating a template machine and then stuffing the disk image on all the others, or just using the normal debian install (but we're worried we'd have to spend to much time on each machine). There are a couple of other questions we have as well. Has anyone nfs mounted /usr and if so how do you handle updates to packages? Also, what is the process for creating local packages that override standard packages? Thanks, Kay -- Jason Killen Question Stupidity Ma ma's don't let your babies grow up to be Linux hackers Monolith : the new ANSI standard for humans PGP fingerprint = 64 71 48 14 31 AE C6 70 E4 4F 64 EB 3B AA 00 6B [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: debian in a lab
Hi Kay, We currently have 5 Debian clients running with /usr, /home and bits of /var (shared tfm and pk font files). The system runs really well over our not too busy 10Mbps ethernet. This may be because we have a good server, PPro 200MHz with 64MB and a fast-wide SCSI disk, so your milage might vary if your server's not so good (memory and disk are probably more important than CPU here). As to package control, I have to confess we did everything by hand, first getting a workable small installation on each local machine (about 100MB), then mounting /usr et al. over the top of this. At the moment our clients then have a local /usr with the most basic packages installed, but, in normal use, hidden under the NFS /usr. This is an inefficient use of disk space, I know, but does mean that the machines are usable in case of server failure, and it also simplifies upgrades with dpkg when necessary. Most things work without any trouble then, although on one very small disk machine I had to hand copy a few config files across (e.g., /etc/lynx.cfg). It is a pain to upgrade: we have to umount all network disks, run dselect, remount the network. The ideal situation, I think, would be for dselect to have an option where by it can be told that certain directories are NFS mounted. It should then do the installation as normal, but not copy files to these directories (or attempt to delete them upon uninstalling). Would that be hard to implement? I don't think so, though I never got farther than thinking... If one wanted to be really clever, one could get dselect on a client to download the server's list of installed packages and issue a warning if the client tried to install a different version of the package or a package that the server didn't have. I think that with those sort of changes Debian could be made very user friendly to NFS networks like ours. If I were in your shoes I'd test with one client, until everything works well, then export the package list and run dselect on each machine out of a script (mounting the packages NFS, of course!). I'd be interested to hear how it goes, because I think that our setup is a bit of a munge, even if it does work. Cheers, Graeme -- | Graeme A Stewart, pgp public key finger [EMAIL PROTECTED]| | Key fingerprint = AF C7 BF A4 52 D5 3C 3B 17 A5 62 43 DA 15 E8 97 | | Keep a good head, and always carry a lightbulb. Dylan |
