rsync vs installworld

[Peter Pentchev]

On Sun, Oct 19, 2003 at 10:16:54AM -1000, Clifton Royston wrote:
> > Date: Sat, 18 Oct 2003 19:28:27 -0600 (MDT)
> > From: "M. Warner Losh" <imp at bsdimp.com>
> > Subject: rsync vs installworld
> > Message-ID: <20031018.192827.118920091.imp at bsdimp.com>
> > 
> > I'm contemplating a binary distribution system for some systems that I
> > have.  I'm ignoring kernel updates for the moment, and concentrating
> > on userland deployment.
> > 
> > I'm thinking of doing something like:
> > 
> > make buildworld
> > make installworld DESTDIR=/big/disk/freebsd/image
> > make mergemaster -D /big/disk/freebsd/mergemaster
> > 
> > And then on each machine I want to update I'd do something like:
> > 
> > sudo rsync --exclude etc --exclude usr/local --exclude boot \
> > 	--delete -av host-server:/big/disk/freebsd/image /
> > sudo rm -rf /tmp/mergemaster
> > sudo scp host-server:/big/disk/freebsd/mergemaster /tmp/mergemaster
> > sudo mergemaster -someargs
> > 
> > My question is: has anybody else tried this?  If so, what bumps along
> > the way are there going to be?
> 
>   I'm also very interested in this topic, as we're about to try to get
> something similar working.  Initially it will be for a moderate number
> of servers at one location, and so can require console intervention,
> but in our case it eventually needs to extend to many systems located
> elsewhere with no onsite administrator.
> 
>   In our case we have already built a simple framework for distributing
> FreeBSD binary packages built within the ports system (rsync presently,
> but extensible to http/https.) I have been hoping that it's possible to
> build on the "make release" approach to generate a set of binary
> packages for updates to the base system, distribute those via rsync,
> and then install the package collection.  It seems to me that an
> advantage of that approach is that one could incorporate some of that
> mergemaster logic into the pkg-install scripts.
> 
>   Feedback, direction, or real-world experience with like systems would
> be welcomed.

Errr, isn't this pretty much what Colin Percival's
security/freebsd-update port already does? :)  Take a look at
http://www.daemonology.net/freebsd-update/ - this might be exactly what
you are looking for...

G'luck,
Peter

-- 
Peter Pentchev	roam at ringlet.net    roam at sbnd.net    roam at FreeBSD.org
PGP key:	http://people.FreeBSD.org/~roam/roam.key.asc
Key fingerprint	FDBA FD79 C26F 3C51 C95E  DF9E ED18 B68D 1619 4553
This sentence would be seven words long if it were six words shorter.
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