rsync and rawhide

[Alexandre Oliva]

On Oct 19, 2003, Jean Francois Martinez <jfm512 at free.fr> wrote:

> The problem is that RPM is a compressed format.

The solution for this would be an rsync-based download program that
would collect bits from an installed rpm and an rsync server that was
file-format-aware and actually looked at the uncompressed payload of
the rpm, with local-recompression.  Since RPM signatures and md5s are
computed over the compressed payload, the same compressor must be
available at both ends, and the same compression level must be used.
This need could be minimized by computing signatures and md5sums on
the uncompressed payload.  Then, you can even choose to recompress an
RPM with better compression levels to save on storage size, without
invalidating signatures.

A further improvement would be to enable recompression of sources
without invalidating spec files or their signatures.  Spec files
could list sources without their compression suffixes, that would then
be ``completed'' automatically by rpm.  Alternatively, installing a
SRPM formerly recompressed could implicitly uncompress/recompress
files into their original extensions.  The point here is to not
invalidate the signature by requiring changes to the spec file to
accommodate changes in the compression extensions.

As a last step, the rsync file-format-aware program could then peek
into the compressed tarballs and patches forming an SRPM and save on
downloads even for SRPMS that have had small changes to the tar files.

</pipe-dream> :-)

Yeah, it's a long way from where we are... :-(

-- 
Alexandre Oliva   Enjoy Guarana', see http://www.ic.unicamp.br/~oliva/
Red Hat GCC Developer                 aoliva@{redhat.com, gcc.gnu.org}
CS PhD student at IC-Unicamp        oliva@{lsd.ic.unicamp.br, gnu.org}
Free Software Evangelist                Professional serial bug killer