merging pkg databases

[Matthew Seaman]

On 11/07/14 15:14, Sebastian Jäschke wrote:
> For some reason we need to merge pkg(ng) databases together, so that
> only the newer packages is in the resulting database, if both merged
> databases have packages of the same type. And if two packages in the
> databases have even the same version, always the same database is
> overwritten. The reason is that we have a ro tree which is handled
> differently than the rw pathes including /usr/local.
> 
> It seems to be not possible with the common tools for pkg, so our
> company is willing to pay for a solution on this.
> 
> How should be ask whom for this? Is one of the followers of this fine
> list a freelancer, willing and able to do this job? Should we ask the
> foundation itself? We are quite new on a question like this, so
> please advise!

When you say 'ro tree' and 'rw tree' are these just chunks of the usual
filesystem layout with custom permissions?  New filesystem hierarchies
you've invented (which implies custom package builds with variant
$PREFIX / $LOCALBASE) or else some more complex system using overlays?

If it's the first option, and maybe for the other two options, then a
fairly quick solution is to dump out the lists of packages you want
installed (i.e. the ones not set to autoremove)

   # pkg query -e '%a = 0' '%n-%v' > pkg-list1

Do that for both of your pkg databases, and then merge the two lists,
removing any duplicates:

   # cat pkg-list1 pkg-list2 | sort -u > pkg-list

You'll need to check pkg-list manually for any duplicated packages with
different versions, and choose which one (usually the most recent) you
want installed.  Delete any unwanted duplicates from the list.

Then on a test box -- just a normally setup FreeBSD machine, with no
special permissions settings --  install the edited list of packages:

   # xargs pkg install < pkg-list

Now compare the set of files installed on the test machine with what is
on the original machine with the ro and rw filesystems.  Delete any
packages on the original system not present on the new one, and install
any that are missing -- you'll probably want to do some testing at this
point to make sure you've got the right functionality still working. The
idea is to end up with an identical package load on both systems.

Now you should be able to simply copy /var/db/local.sqlite from the test
box to your original server.

Does that make sense to you?

	Cheers,

	Matthew


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