rpm --nodeps vs. yum/apt
Tom Mitchell
mitch48 at sbcglobal.net
Fri Dec 19 13:52:39 UTC 2003
On Thu, 18 Dec 2003, Clif Smith wrote:
> Reply-To: fedora-list at redhat.com
>
> To elaborate more on my scenario... When we're ready to begin QA, I
> grab all of the latest appropriate RPMs for our environment via up2date
> on RHN and store them in a central repository.
Ok having a QA process is good.
> So, within that repository, I've got a set of updates,
> including their dependencies, from which I can build systems
> tailored for the version of our product we need to QA against.
Reading between the lines it sounds to me as if you want a set of
local redistribution resources that up2date/yum can pull from.
So start with a directory full of the basic system and all the
interesting updated rpms you can get your hands on. Some may
need to be downloaded by hand (http/ftp).
Next build a parallel directory and make symbolic links from the
master dir such that the new dir is populated with a specific
subset of files to represent a testing context.
Next enable the dir as ftp/http resource that yum/up2date can
interact with. This way yum/up2date will not jump and pass over
some rpm of interest to the QA process because a 'newer' version
is visible to it.
If you do it correctly a long list of various configurations that
have no illegal dependencies will be possible. Further you will
notice illegal collections of rpms as you attempt to update!
Next on a minimum baseline system configure up2date/yum to look
at this dir and give up2date/yum a launch. This should result in
a reproduceable software configuration for testing. Some config
files may need to be script updated.
You might automate the population of these parallel dirs with a
script that gets data from the output of "rpm -qa" (see
/var/log/rpmpkgs). This can make it easy to build another one
just like the last one.
Such an automated process could be general enough to accept an
rpmpkgs list from a customer and let your QA/service folks
effectively clone that specific situation.
By keeping good notes you will be able to do a binary search and
find out when a problem 'rpm' arrived should a 'new' bug report
generate a new test.
Summary: look into yum and stick with rpm.
Regards,
TomM
BTW: If this is nVidia please fix the Mesa interaction.
--
T o m M i t c h e l l
mitch48 -a*t- yahoo-dot-com
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