On Thu, 14 Aug 2003, Klingaman, Aaron L wrote: > Ok, so I spent some time reading through the website, and a large > portion of the list archives, but wasn't able to find much information > about this. (although there is a chance I could have missed something in > the archives, I was scanning through looking for pertinent subjects) > > Here is what I was thinking: > > First assume you have a new system (no previous install), and you've > already setup the disks, mounted the partitions, bootstrapped RPM, setup > networking, and manually installed only the rpms necessary to run yum > (for example, this could be done from a boot cd, in a chrooted > environment). > > Now, would it be possible to basically install this system completely > from say a set of RedHat 9 RPMS, if you had a known set of packages you > wanted to install (not necessarily using comps.xml). That way, yum could > not only install the system (post bootstrap), but keep it up to date all > over the network? > > I'm kind of just thinking out loud here, but would like to hear from > anyone else that has thought about this and/or actually tried it (which > I probably will do anyway, just for kicks). Seth and I have been kicking this idea around for a long time now -- in my case it was motivated by the fact that RH installs tend to be stateless, so if an install fails for any reason, it isn't possible to reboot and "finish" the install. I have a DSL line to my home, and for a while there DSL based installs had a tendency to die in midstream after two hours or more of work. However, it is also motivated by the same sort of points addressed in the ongoing discussion of ways to use yum to bring a system into a "standard" package configuration, adding or deleting packages to whatever it has installed as required. Obviously if the latter feature already existed and could take a simple list of packages and package groups as an argument (a la kickstart -- in fact, filtered OUT of a kickstart file might be truly ideal) then one could do this now by just creating a special "Yum Base" installation configuration that was the system base plus the bare minimum number of tools required to make yum function. In a yum-kickstart install, the %post (post-reboot post) could even kick one into yum with the desired package/group list. There are, I think, a number of advantages in such an install, even to the point where it might be desireable over kickstart or the regular install even in an environment with utterly reliable networks. For one thing, it makes the install process a lot more robust -- once the base is in, yum can be interrupted any number of times and still get the system into synch. For another, it actually could simplify the maintenance of differentiated system types in a department, as instead of having KS files for each kind of system (server, workstation, development station, cluster node, etc.) you might have just ONE base ks image that effectively "never changed" in its trivial package list, plus entirely separate package/group lists per type that can BOTH drive the install AND serve as the yum maintenance template. Truthfully, I think that yum is already to the point where doing this would be pretty easy -- it supports package groups (right?) and packages and can easily enough be fed from a list. The only "difficult" thing left is coming up with the bare minimal kickstart base and working out the actual details of the %post yum layer. I was thinking of tackling these myself in my current RH 9 upgrade at home, when I have time, but as usual who knows when I'll have time? Ditto, by the way, with the yum HOWTO, which Jack might find useful or want to contribute to. Jack, the current/initial yum HOWTO is available on http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/, I think under "General". This has parts of what you want but isn't finished. Feel free to add to it and mail me stuff, or nag me to finish at least a full pass through the basic stuff. I've just finished setting up a full yum repository at home (with rsync'd from and with fallbacks to Duke and a home-local overlay and everything) so that I should be able to complete sections on this doing this sort of thing pretty handily. rgb > Thanks, > > Aaron > _______________________________________________ > Yum mailing list > Yum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx > https://lists.dulug.duke.edu/mailman/listinfo/yum > -- Robert G. Brown http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/ Duke University Dept. of Physics, Box 90305 Durham, N.C. 27708-0305 Phone: 1-919-660-2567 Fax: 919-660-2525 email:rgb@xxxxxxxxxxxx
