rpmsync - determine which RPMs to install to bring a system up to date
rpmsync [<unrecognized-options-passed-to-rpm>] [-d|--distribution [[distribution] ...] [-p|--rpmpath [dir | url [^cacheurl]]...] [-F|--freshen [[name] ...]] [-U|--upgrade [[name] ...]] [-g|--ignore [[regex] ...]] [-e|--remove [[name] ...]] [-G|--group [group] ...] [--rpm [command [[args] ...]]] [--update-cache] [--help] [--version]
rpmsync traverses a set of directories (backed by URLs, see below) looking for RPMs to upgrade. It will use the most up-to-date packages it is able to find and it undertands RPM dependencies. Freshening all installed packages from the current directory is the default action so that rpmsync with no options is more or less like ``rpm -F *.rpm''. It is different in that it will work even if there are multiple versions of the same package found and by default it will install not upgrade kernel packages. Additionally rpmsync will also install packages it finds that are needed by the packages it plans to upgrade. rpmsync only addresses dependency problems that can be fixed by adding packages found on its search path. In particular, it will not remove a package that is not explicitly obsoleted or upgraded.
If possible RPM header information is cached per directory in a file called .rpmsync-cache.
rpmsync can also download the RPMs it needs from a URL. To do this it needs a header.info file, an hdlist file or an .rpmsync-cache file for each URL describing the RPMs that are available. The hdlist file is provided by RedHat for their original distributions, but not for their updates. Additional URLs (preceded by a '^') can be provided as locations to find the RPM header information if it is different from the URL for the RPMs themselves.
rpmsync is a simple self contained perl(1) script. All RPM access
is through the command line program rpm(1) or by parsing the RPMs
directly. It is not linked with an RPM library, so it should run on
even the most minimal installations.
rpmsync does not actually install anything itself, it just prints the rpm commands needed to perform the specified actions. You can pipe the output to ``sh'' or ``sh -x'' in order to execute it.
You can set many of the command line options in either /etc/rpmsync or ~/.rpmsyncrc, so for example if you put
@rpmpath=qw(/redhat-7.2/os/i386/RedHat/RPMS
/redhat-7.2/updates/i386);
then
rpmsync -U glib-devel
would work like 'apt-get install glib-devel' as it would look on the current path and find glib-devel and everything that it depends on. A better way to do this would be with distributions (described below).
rpmsync
This will freshen every installed rpm from those found in the detected default distribution or if none is detected from those found in the current directory.
rpmsync -d fedora-3
This will use the given distribution. This can be used, for example, for upgrading
rpmsync -d fedora-3 atrpms -U mythtv
or for cherry picking certain packages from other distribution sites while picking up needed dependenies from somewhere else first. Additional local paths can be specified as well
rpmsync -p /local-fedora-4-rpms -d fedora-4
This will look in the local directory
rpmsync --rpmpath /redhat-7.0/local/RPMS \
/redhat-7.0/i386/updates/RPMS \
/redhat-7.0/i386/Redhat/RPMS \
--upgrade xmms glibc-devel \
--freshen \
--remove magicdev
This would make sure that the newest version of all installed packages are installed while ensuring that the latest xmms and glibc-devel are installed (even if they were not before) and that magicdev is not installed. Also any packages needed by these new packages are installed.
rpmsync --group Applications/Publishing
Will make sure that the latest version of every package in the current directory that is in the Applications/Publishing group is installed.
For example you could create a new install of redhat that has at least XEmacs and everything it needs with something like the following.
mkdir -p /tmp/new-install/var/lib/rpm
rpm --root /tmp/new-install --initdb
rpmsync --rpm rpm --root /tmp/new-install \
--rpmpath /redhat-7.2/RPMS \
--group "System Environment/Base" \
--upgrade xemacs \
| sh -x
Note that you could theoretically leave off the ``System Environment/Base'' group, and it should work, but for example neither XEmacs or anything it depends on seems to actually depend on rpm, so you wont get it unless you add it explicitly. rpmsync by default wont choose between two RPMs it could add that both provide a requirement, so this will choose packages from the base as a default. This must be done as root since rpm --root does a chroot(3).
rpmsync takes its option names from rpm(1) where possible.
-v, --hash, -h, --test, --nodeps, --force
$distribution{'redhat-7.2'} = ['/local/rpms',
'/updates/redhat-7.2',
'/distribution/redhat-7.2'];
$distribution{'redhat-7.3'} = ['/local/rpms',
'/updates/redhat-7.3',
'/distribution/redhat-7.3'];
The paths indicated by a distribution are put after any paths given on the command line so that if you download some new packages into the current directory then
rpmsync -d redhat-7.2 -p .
would look there first and then in the ``redhat-7.2'' distribution's directories. Though unless two RPMs have exactly the same version, the order doesn't matter since only the newest RPMs are used.
This corresponds to the -F option of rpm(1).
An empty list matches all installed packages. This is the default.
This corresponds to the -U option of rpm(1).
An empty list matches all packages encountered.
rpm(1) for more info.
Could use the comps file too.
By default packages the packages kernel, kernel-smp, kernel-bigmem and kernel-enterprise are installed instead of upgraded.
This corresponds to the -e option of rpm(1).
When rpmsync is used with this option it will update the file provision cache of every RPM in the path regardless of version, architecture or which packages are currently installed then exit.
--update-cache is generally not necessary except in the case when some users do not have write access to the cache files and you still want them to have the benefit of using them. This is useful, for example, if you provide HTTP access to your RPMs or in order to save bandwidth if you have many clients acessing your RPMs over a slow or read-only network filesystem.
/etc/rpmsync ~/.rpmsyncrc
.rpmsync-cache headers/header.info ../base/hdlist
/etc/redhat-release
rpm(1)
Jim Radford <radford@blackbean.org>