[Spacewalk-list] script to create webserver accessible repo of packages under Spacewalk channels

[Matthew Patton]

On Tue, 04 Sep 2012 18:41:07 -0400, Jeremy Davis <jdavis4102 at gmail.com>  
wrote:

> then you could write the url as follows. Note that the centos6 is set in
> the URL to tell Spacewalk to look under the centos6 base channel for the
> updates channel.
>
> http://<Spacewalk app server or proxy server
> FQDN>/dist/child/updates/centos6/

the point is that the keyword "child" and specifying an obtuse hierarchy  
path at all let alone in reverse, is what is dumb. And having to tell the  
software, "oh look, I'm sending you a URL with 2 levels of children so you  
can parse this correctly." It's just badly written. There is no  
justification for having to specify the hierarchy in the first place. The  
channel name is unique. That is sufficient to find the package.

> You can use this url to pull packages. All you would need to do is add
> getPackage/<full rpm package name including version and arch.rpm>. This
> would be the same as if yum was calling for the package as it would know
> the version, release, and arch it was needing to install. The repodata  
> yum
> uses is generated by Spacewalk so there is no need to create any  
> additional
> scripts or anything like that in order to pull packages from Spacewalk or
> provide this config to a client for use with yum.

You're missing the point. Your method REQUIRES me to make RHN api calls. I  
want NOTHING TO DO WITH spacewalk/satellite. It also REQUIRES me to have a  
valid "Distribution" defined. Again, do not want. I furthermore do NOT  
want to needlessly complicate my yum repo specification by referring to  
hierarchy of Channels or Distributions via a badly thought out URL scheme.

I wrote what I did to deliberately side-step the brokenness of Spacewalk.
I'm not the least bit denying that your method also works. But I ask you.  
If you wanted a tarball of the channel, who do you think would have it in  
30 seconds?

-- 
Cloud Services Architect, Senior System Administrator
InfoRelay Online Systems (www.inforelay.com)