Re: Package management

[Jeff Sheltren]

Hi Mark, hopefully I can answer some of your questions - see below:

On Fri, 2003-09-19 at 10:57, Mark.Burgess@iu.hio.no wrote:
> I wonder:
> 
>  How does rpm know where to look for packages?
You tell it.  For local packages you give a path:
rpm --install /foo/bar/yippee-2.5-1.i386.rpm

>  What if they are at a remote source?
something like:
rpm --install ftp://some.server.com/rpms/foobar-2.0-1.i386.rpm

>  Could the packages be downloaded in from cfservd? 
I don't see why not, but if you use the FTP approach, then you don't
need to worry about this...

>  If so, where should they go?
Depends on the distro I guess... but maybe /usr/src would be a good
place?

>  How are dependencies handed?
Not so well...  If a dependency is not met, it will tell you as much and
then bail out.  I have been using a program 'yum' for RPM package
management and updates with very good results.  It automatically
resolves dependencies for you, etc.  Homepage:
http://linux.duke.edu/projects/yum/

Then, for your example below, you could do something like:
'yum install tcpdump'
and it would automatically install the pcap package for you as well as
the tcpdump package.

-Jeff

> If this has been explained to me previously than I apologize.
> I am wading through old mail, and working on "methods"
> for 2.1.0... any help appreciated.
> 
> e.g.
> 
>  Suppose I want to make sure that all hosts have tcpdump installed
>  and that requires the pcap library as a dependency. How do I
>  express that, given that the packages are all on a DVD...or
>  copied into some source dir.
> 
> Mark