RH 9 EOL Updates ISOs

[Mike Vanecek]

On Sun, 06 Jun 2004 15:34:21 +0100, Jon Peatfield wrote
> > >I have been asking around and have just about come to the conclusion that it
> > >don't exist. I would like to get CD(s) (or downloadable ISOs) containing all
> > >RH 9 updates (SRPM and i386 RPM) up to the point of EOL. I'd like to avoid
> > >having to download all the individual packages. With all the mirrors and
> > >legacy work going around, I was hoping someone had already put together an
> > >ISO. Does anyone know of a source?
> > 
> > I did something similar for RedHat 7.3 at its EOL.  The frustrating 
> > thing (as a former RedHat mirror admin) is that RedHat doesn't really 
> > have a policy for removing superseded errata from the updates tree.  
> > Upon request, they've periodically purged the updates tree of old RPMs, 
> > but even RedHat 9 still has duplicate packages.  Once they do that, it 
> > doesn't seem too difficult to produce an ISO (or two).
> 
> I make use of a handy repostory maintenance script (rh_buildtree
> written by Peter Benie who works in a different department here),
> which given a set of directories full of rpms constructs/maintains a
> directory which contains the latest version of all those packages
> which pass a signature-check (as hard-links to whichever source they
> were from -- original shipped version, updates, local-packages etc).

Interesting. I finally just downloaded all the updates and put them on a CD. I
did have to do some editing to get rid of the old duplicate RPMS (moved them
to a folder by themselves).

I also tried to create a boot CD containing a merge between the original files
and the update files. I went through and tried manually deleting the duplicate
replaced RPMS. Somehow the result was working out larger than the original CD.
Also, I realized that I would also need to edit the TRANS file with the RPM
information for the ones replaced or added. The editing soon lost its
cost/benefit return and I just decided to do it from updates.

It sounds like rh_buildtree does exactly that. 

> [ We use it to re-build install trees overnight so that a fresh
> install always goes straight to having the latest versions available
> from the tree (which saves having insecure versions until patched and
> also is much quicker).

Ooooh, that is exactly what I was trying to do. Now if one could create
bootable install CDs, it would be perfect. Then when one installed a fresh
system, it would be from updated RPMs.

Would it be possible to get a copy of the scripts?

> We also use a script (rpmalert) which checks what versions are
> out-of-date on a machine and another (rpm-update) which applies the
> updates we have flagged as ok, but I suppose you may have yum/up2date
> for that function anyway.

Yea, once the fresh install is done using the RH 9 CD made updated with
updates, then one can just use yum.

> I'm still using this older repository maintenance script for my 
> redhat trees (which takes ~15 minutes to run and (I think) results 
> in an extra copy of some of the packages on disk).

That can be a pain if one is trying to hone it down to fit on a bootable CD
using the format of the original RH 9 distribution CD.

> If you just want the latest versions of update packages that could
> probably be done easily enough.

I'd be happy to just have a merged RH 9 system consisting of the original
files and updates up to the EOL, but with duplicate RPMS removed.

> > Is this something useful for FedoraLegacy to include in its distribution 
> > tree?
> 
> Well I'm not sure that iso's would be anything other than a space
> waste -- anyone could make their own anyway.  A list of rpms which 
> are current or a script to generate such a list would be much 
> smaller and possibly of more use to more people.

Yea, I can make my own ISOs so long as they will each fit on a single CD. My
goal was to create a set of RH 9 install CDs with the RPMs based on what
existed at EOL.