rpm-guide rpm-guide-management-software-en.xml,NONE,1.1
Stuart Ellis (elliss)
fedora-docs-commits at redhat.com
Tue Oct 4 01:54:12 UTC 2005
Author: elliss
Update of /cvs/docs/rpm-guide
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rpm-guide-management-software-en.xml
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--- NEW FILE rpm-guide-management-software-en.xml ---
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<chapter id="ch-management-software">
<title>RPM Management Software</title>
<para>
Copyright (c) 2005 by Eric Foster-Johnson. This material may be
distributed only subject to the terms and conditions set forth in
the Open Publication License, v1.0 or later (the latest version is
presently available at http://www.opencontent.org/openpub/).
</para>
<para/>
<para>
In This Chapter
</para>
<para>
*Finding packages in RPM format
</para>
<para>
*Graphical tools to manage RPM packages
</para>
<para>
*Extending RPM management with additional tools
</para>
<para>
You can find a variety of software packages to ease the work of
managing RPM-based systems. These utilities can help you find a
specific software application packaged using RPM or search through a
collection of RPM-packaged software to locate applications with
specific features. Similarly, several utilities provide features to
ease long-term system-management tasks. These applications provide
features such as automatic updating of existing installed software
with more recent versions or simplification of software installation
by automating installation of any required software dependencies.
</para>
<para>
This chapter covers a number of tools for finding packages in RPM
format, as well as tools to help manage the RPMs on your system.
</para>
<sect1>
<title>Locating RPMs</title>
<para>
RPM provides a powerful tool for managing software installed on a
system. With a single command, an entire application can be
installed on the system in a ready-to-run configuration. With a
different command, the entire application can be removed without
having manually to track down all of the associated files
scattered throughout the hard drive. For RPM to work, however, the
software being managed must be packaged in the proper RPM format.
RPM packages can be easily prepared if necessary, but you can save
time by using the wide variety of software already available in
the RPM format. The only trick to using this RPM-packaged software
is finding it.
</para>
<para>
As you start to search for RPM packages on the Internet, you’ll
find thousands of packages available. Many of these packages are
built specifically for various Linux distributions, such as
Conectiva, SuSE, Red Hat, or Mandrake. In many cases, the Linux
distribution won’t matter, but in general it's best to download
packages built for your version of Linux, such as Red Hat.
</para>
<para>
Note
</para>
<para>
Although the examples in this book assume Red Hat Linux as a base,
just about everything applies to all versions of Linux that use
the RPM system, unless noted otherwise.
</para>
<para>
Internet search engines are popular, but they aren’t very
helpful for finding RPM packages, especially because lots of Web
pages have the term rpm (including those covering revolutions per
minute). A more efficient approach is to use one of the
RPM-specific Internet search tools such as rpmfind.
</para>
<sect2>
<title>rpmfind and rpm2html</title>
<para>
One popular free tool for locating RPMs is rpmfind, written by
Daniel Veillard. This tool provides a command-line utility that
can search for packages by name or description, displaying or
optionally downloading any matching packages it finds. It can
even provide a list of the dependencies that those matching
packages require to run and can download those required
dependencies as well.
</para>
<para>
When searching for packages, rpmfind can search both the
software already installed on the local system and remote
databases, including the databases located at
http://rpmfind.net/.
</para>
<para>
Note
</para>
<para>
The databases at http://rpmfind.net/ are, in turn, created by
another utility: rpm2html. Both are covered in the sections
following.
</para>
<para>
Commonly, rpmfind is used to search for packages by name, though
it can be used to search package descriptions for key words. For
example, I might want to find new e-mail clients to install on
my system. I happen to know that one popular Linux e-mail client
is Ximian’s evolution, so I search for that.
</para>
<para>
The basic syntax for rpmfind follows:
</para>
<para>
rpmfind package_name
</para>
<para>
For example, to search for evolution, use a command like the
following:
</para>
<para>
$ rpmfind evolution
</para>
<para>
Resource evolution already installed
</para>
<para>
$
</para>
<para>
Before accessing the Internet, rpmfind searches my local system
and finds that I already have evolution installed, so it does
not even bother searching for copies to download. It looks like
I’m forgetful, not remembering that I already have evolution
installed. At this point, I might realize that I already have
the software I need, or I might decide to search for a similar
application, such as exmh, another popular Unix e-mail client.
</para>
<para>
To search for exmh (which in this example has not been
installed), use a command like the following:
</para>
<para>
$ rpmfind exmh
</para>
<para>
Installing exmh will require 7301 KBytes
</para>
<para/>
<para>
### To Transfer:
</para>
<para>
ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/redhat/linux/7.2/en/os/i386/RedHat/RPMS//nmh-1.0.4-9.i3
</para>
<para>
86.rpm
</para>
<para>
ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/redhat/linux/7.2/en/os/i386/RedHat/RPMS//exmh-2.4-2.noarch.rpm
</para>
<para>
Do you want to download these files to /tmp [Y/n/a/i] ? : a
</para>
<para>
transferring
</para>
<para>
ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/redhat/linux/7.2/en/os/i386/RedHat/RPMS//nmh-1.0.4-9.i386.rpm
</para>
<para>
saving to /tmp/nmh-1.0.4-9.i386.rpm
</para>
<para>
transferring
</para>
<para>
ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/redhat/linux/7.2/en/os/i386/RedHat/RPMS//exmh-2.4-2.noarch.rpm
</para>
<para>
saving to /tmp/exmh-2.4-2.noarch.rpm
</para>
<para>
rpm -U /tmp/nmh-1.0.4-9.i386.rpm /tmp/exmh-2.4-2.noarch.rpm
</para>
<para>
$
</para>
<para>
Here, rpmfind searches my local system for exmh. Since exmh is
not installed there, rpmfind searches the databases at
http://rpmfind.net/ and does two things: it finds exmh, and it
learns that exmh depends upon another package: nmh. After
[...1729 lines suppressed...]
this reason, apt can only be used to update systems from
apt-capable repositories.
</para>
<para>
Although apt was created by the Debian Project and designed for
dpkg-format software packages, nothing about apt requires that
it inherently be usable only with dpkg-format packages. Because
of this, and because of its powerful capabilities, Conectiva, a
Brazilian Linux distribution vendor (www.conectiva.com),
extended apt to support management of RPM packages in addition
to dpkg packages. Conectiva’s work, commonly referred to as
apt-rpm, makes the apt client software available for use on any
RPM-based Linux distribution. Conectiva also provides its
customers with access to apt-capable FTP servers. A related
project, apt4rpm (http://apt4rpm.sourceforge.net/), supplies the
necessary utilities that can be used to make any RPM repository
apt-capable. By creating apt-capable servers using apt4rpm and
then installing apt-rpm on the client systems, any RPM-based
distribution, such as Red Hat Linux, Mandrake Linux, Caldera/SCO
OpenLinux, or SuSE Linux, can then be easily managed using apt.
</para>
<para>
Note
</para>
<para>
The freshrpms.net site, mentioned previously, provides a touted
apt repository.
</para>
<para>
Administrators managing multiple dispersed machines as well as
those used to Debian administration often find it useful to
configure their machines to use apt; its dependency tracking is
far better than any other tool, except for Red Hat’s
up2date/RHN combination. To use apt, administrators must install
it on their machines and have access to an apt-capable RPM
repository for the distribution they use. Several public FTP
sites that support apt are now available for most of the major
RPM-based distributions. Also, the administrator can create
another apt-capable repository.
</para>
<para>
Configuration of machines to use apt is simple. The apt and
libapt RPMs simply need to be installed. Although binaries are
sometimes available, the best success can usually be obtained by
building binary RPMs from the latest Conectiva apt SRPM (source
RPM), available at
ftp://ftp.conectiva.com/pub/conectiva/EXPERIMENTAL/apt/.
</para>
<para>
Once apt and libapt RPMs are installed, the sources.list file in
/etc/apt needs to be modified to reference the apt-capable
software site that will be used. For example, to configure a
machine to access the apt-capable Red Hat Linux 7.2 software
distributed by the Tuxfamily.org server, the
/etc/apt/sources.list file needs to list:
</para>
<para>
rpm http://apt-rpm.tuxfamily.org/apt redhat-7.2-i386/redhat os
</para>
<para>
rpm http://apt-rpm.tuxfamily.org/apt redhat-updates-7.2/redhat
os
</para>
<para>
These two lines, respectively, access the Red Hat Linux 7.2 and
Red Hat Linux 7.2 errata RPMs being served by the system
apt-rpm.tuxfamily.org. If you also want access to source RPMs,
the following lines are necessary as well.
</para>
<para>
rpm-src http://apt-rpm.tuxfamily.org/apt redhat-7.2-i386/redhat
os
</para>
<para>
rpm-src http://apt-rpm.tuxfamily.org/apt
redhat-updates-7.2/redhat os
</para>
<para>
In addition to, or instead of, using public apt-capable servers,
many sites want to create their own apt servers. If apt is being
used to manage all the machines in the enterprise, a custom apt
server might be needed that contains apt-accessible RPMs of all
the custom software used in the enterprise. This can be done
using the tools provided by the apt4rpm package
(http://apt4rpm.sourceforge.net).
</para>
<para>
Once apt has been installed on clients, and the clients have
been configured to access an apt-capable server, keeping systems
updated is simple. The command apt-get update updates the client
system’s apt database of available software, after which the
command apt-get upgrade upgrades all currently installed
software to the latest version available in the software
repository. By listing a site that provides vendor errata
updates in /etc/apt/sources.list and then setting up a nightly
cron job to run the apt-get upgrade command, administrators can
be sure that client systems always have the latest errata
installed. You can use a similar technique to ensure that all
client systems are always up to date with the latest custom
in-house applications. To do this, set up your own apt server
and ensure that the latest custom applications are placed on the
apt server.
</para>
<para>
In addition, apt simplifies interactive installation of RPMs on
systems that are using it. The command apt-get install package
retrieves the named RPM from the apt-capable software repository
and installs it. If the package requires any dependencies that
are not already resolved, apt will ask for confirmation, then
download and install the package and all dependencies.
Similarly, apt-get remove package uninstalls the named RPM. If
any other packages depend on it, it will prompt for
confirmation, then uninstall the named RPM and all of its
dependencies.
</para>
<para>
In addition to these command-line utilities, several graphical
front-end tools for manipulating apt are currently being ported
for use with apt-rpm. Because of its ease of use for automating
installation of system errata and necessary custom software, and
because of the excellent dependency tracking it provides for
interactive installation and uninstallation of software, apt-rpm
can be excellent for managing RPM-based systems.
</para>
</sect2>
<sect2>
<title>The poldek</title>
<para>
Also similar to the Debian apt tool, a utility called the poldek
works like apt-get. The poldek was designed to quickly scan
through dependencies and install a number of packages at once.
You can specify all the packages to install in a file.
</para>
<para>
The poldek automatically downloads any needed dependencies. The
poldek can download files over the Internet and also help create
the packages for storage on CD-ROMs. The poldek optimizes the
set of packages to reduce the number of times users have to
switch CDs.
</para>
<para>
Cross Reference
</para>
<para>
For more on the poldek, see poldek.pld.org.pl.
</para>
</sect2>
</sect1>
<sect1>
<title>Summary</title>
<para>
This chapter has covered a number of tools for finding packages in
RPM format, as well as tools to help manage the RPMs on your
system. The rpm command does a great job of installing, removing,
and upgrading packages. You can use it or choose from one of the
many graphical RPM management tools shown in this chapter.
</para>
<para>
The rpmfind utility helps find RPM packages on Internet servers.
You can use rpmfind to find the latest version of the packages
installed on your system.
</para>
<para>
The Nautilus file manager allows you to browse files on disk, and
it installs any RPM files you double-click.
</para>
<para>
Red Hat Linux 8 comes with a new package-management tool available
from the System Settings menu. Be careful with this tool, though,
as it automatically installs--and removes--dependent packages.
</para>
<para>
AutoRPM and AutoUpdate provide utilites that you can run
periodically to ensure that your systems are up to date. The Red
Hat Network and up2date also provides this capability.
</para>
<para>
The Debian GNU/Linux apt system provides many of the same
capabilities as RPM, along with the network-updating capabilities
of up2date and the Red Hat Network. You can use special apt
packages that adapt apt for RPM-based Linux distributions and get
the best of both the RPM system and the apt system.
</para>
<para>
The next chapter starts the major section on creating RPMs. The
RPM system reduces a lot of the burden of administering Linux
systems. You can take advantage of this when building any sort of
software for distribution--or even when managing your own system.
</para>
</sect1>
</chapter>
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