Software Distributor: Cookbook

»	Creating a Software Depot
»	Copying into a Software Depot Using swcopy
»	Packaging Software Products Using swpackage
»	The Product specification File (PSF)
»	Useful Command-line Options
»	Creating Depot Files or Tapes
»	swlist Tricks

Revision: 1.9, 08/05

	Note: The # or % that precedes each command line is the shell prompt. The # signifies the root user; the % is an ordinary user.

	Creating a Software Depot

# swpackage -s /depot/psf_files/procmail.psf \
-d /home/bass/depot

	Copying into a Software Depot Using swcopy

Copying is simple as previously explained. The basic form of the swcopy command is:

# swcopy -s SOURCE_DEPOT SELECTION @ DESTINATION_DEPOT

The SOURCE_DEPOT could be a depot file, directory, tape device or mounted CD. It has to be a fully-rooted path; that is it must start with a /.

SELECTION is the name of the software selection (the product or fileset) to copy. To copy them all, use \* as the selection.

The DESTINATION_DEPOT also has to be fully-rooted.

How do you know what the software selection's name is? For patches, it's usually the name of the path. Use the swlist command to find out, like so:

% swlist -s <depot>

	Packaging Software Products Using swpackage

The swpackage command is used to gather the pieces of a software product together and stick them into a Software Depot. It's possible to specify lots of things about the product to swpackage. For example, like what other products have to be installed first, or what products also have to be on the system.

For the purpose of this cookbook, you will just do the basics: gathering up the bits and putting them in the depot.

As you saw previously, the basic swpackage command is:

# swpackage -s PSF_FILE @ DEPOT

PSF_FILE is the Product Specification File, and DEPOT is the destination.

HP recommends using the -p option to preview the process, and fix any errors in the PSF before actually writing anything into the depot.

	The Product specification File (PSF)

The Product Specification File (PSF) is where the real work gets done. To make the job of writing PSF files easier, templates were created and you can fill in the blanks. There are two main areas that HP recommends that you swinstall software to: /opt and /usr/contrib. Each one of them has the product broken out differently.

If a product only has a few files -- maybe an executable or two, a few man pages and maybe a library file -- build it to reside in /usr/contrib/bin, /usr/contrib/man/man1, and /usr/contrib/lib, respectively. For Gnu-configured software, this usually means setting the prefix to /usr/contrib.

On the other hand, if this is a major software package -- like Emacs or TCL, I build it with the prefix set to /opt/PACKAGE_NAME. This keeps it all together in one place, and simplifies the PSF file. The Post-Install script adds the bin directory to the contents of /etc/PATH, which you can source in your .cshrc.

	Useful Command-line Options

	Creating Depot Files or Tapes

The swpackage command is also used to re-package existing software selections from an existing depot into a depot tape or file. For example, to re-package the procmail product from the depot directory, /home/bass/depot, into a depot file, /tmp/procmail.depot, use the following:

# swpackage -d /tmp/procmail.depot -x target_type=tape \
-s /home/bass/depot procmail

The addition of the -x target_type=tape forces swpackage to write the depot sequentially to the tape (or file) instead of creating a distribution directory.

To create a tape, substitute the file name given to the -d option with the tape device:

# swpackage -d /dev/rmt/0m -x target_type=tape \
-s /home/bass/depot procmail

The -d argument may also be a pipe to a UNIX command, like the following:

# swpackage -d "| gzip -c > /tmp/procmail.depot.gz" \
-x target_type=tape ... 

	swlist Tricks

Assume you have the HP-UX 11i v1 (B.11.11) Installation CD mounted on /cdrom, you can find the product name of the C compiler as follows:

If you swinstall the C compiler from a depot somewhere else you can determine which one with the following:

% swlist -v -l product C-ANSI-C | grep install_source
install_source windsock:/var/opt/ignite/depots/Rel_B.11.11/apps_800

You could use the following command to determine which product contains pxdb: