[2104] in Release_Engineering
re: [ksb@mentor.cc.purdue.edu: PUCC install tool; need gamma testers]
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (epeisach@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Fri Dec 22 11:36:08 1989
From: epeisach@ATHENA.MIT.EDU
Date: Fri, 22 Dec 89 11:35:51 -0500
To: henry@ATHENA.MIT.EDU
Cc: rel-eng@ATHENA.MIT.EDU
I took a quick look at what was in this package. Essentially, it is a
series of tools designed for a system administrator who has to install
packages himself on machines in what appears to be a timesharing
environment. Install is modified to have a configuration file option
which indicates how certainn files are to b installed, with wildcarding.
For instance, there may be a general line which indicates that all files
in bin should be mode r?xr-xr-x owned by root group bin with specific
exceptions. You can also indicate if the file should be a link or a
binary which is stripped. The program will then not allow you to install
if it requires violating the requirements.
There is also an option to backup the old binary in a OLD directory
which can be created and a line to add to cron to periodically purge
these files. This way, you can backout if a fatal bug is discovered.
Unfortunately, everything appears to be relative to / but that could
probably be overcome, but we would have a hard time comming up with the
proper configuration file if we wanted to use this on the rvd's as we
create them. We could probably work it out with sufficient time. One
feature which I did like was -d in install created directories. So
install -d /bin/athena/foo/bar/baz
whould create all directories to baz as needed. This can however be
disastourous if there is a typo.
I would personally be hesitant to use this as to make it effective, we would
have to make an accurate representation of what is out there on the
packs and put together the configuration file. I also believe that it
would be of limited use to the average user as well as they are not
installing programs on machines to often.
Ezra
