Generating YaST Installation Sources
Knowledgebase
Situation
You want to offer an installation source for a SUSE LINUX version.
Procedure
There are two types of installation sources for YaST, plain cache and "real" YaST sources.
Plain Cache Sources
A Plain Cache source is a directory containing RPM files. For YaST to recognize a directory as plain cache source, you must create a file (IS_PLAINcache) that contains the RPM header information of the available RPM packages. YaST needs the package data (name, version, dependencies, etc.) from the .rpm file in order to avoid reading the file over and over again. For large packages, this would result in extremely long transfer times, even if you do not want to install the package. Therefore, the needed package data is extracted from the packages and stored in a file.
This file can be create with the genIS_PLAINcache utility, which is included in the package yast2-packagemanager starting from SUSE LINUX 9.0.
Advantages
Easy to generate
Disadvantages
Source RPMs (src.rpm) are not supported
Multiple architectures (i586, i686, noarch, ppc, etc.) are not supported
No description of the installation source in YaST
genIS_PLAINcacheis a binary (not a script) that only runs on SUSE systems
Example
You have a directory with a number of binary RPM files on your server and want to make it available as YaST installation source via HTTP or FTP.
/srv/www/htdocs/suse/RPMS/
`- software1-1.0-1.i686.rpm
`- software2-1.0-1.i686.rpm
`- software3-1.0-1.i686.rpm
`- test/
`- test1-0.99-1.i686.rpm
`- test2-0.99-1.i686.rpm
`- test3-0.99-1.i686.rpm
Run the following commands in order to generate a plain cache source:
cd /srv/www/htdocs/suse/RPMS/ genIS_PLAINcache -f -r . gzip genIS_PLAINcache
Subsequently, you can add the directory as installation source in YaST -> Change Source of Installation. Note the restrictions mentioned above.
YaST Sources
A "real" YaST source consists of several files and directories that describe the installation source and its content: binary RPM files for various architectures and the respective source RPM files. Some of the descriptive files can be generated with the create_package_descr script, which is available in the package autoyast2-utils starting from SUSE LINUX 9.0.
Advantages
Source RPMs are supported
Multiple architectures are supported
The description of the installation source is displayed in YaST
Not so easy to generate
The description of the installation source is split in several files:
media.1/
`- media
content
directory.yast
setup/descr/`- packages `- packages.DU `- packages.en
media.1/media
The file media.1/media contains a medium description consisting of the following components:
|
File: |
media.1/media |
|
Content: |
|
Example:
Packman 20040027150052 1
Tip: The date string can be generated with the date utility: date +%Y%m%d%H%M%S
content
The content file contains a medium content description consisting of the following components:
|
Key |
Content |
|
PRODUCT |
Product name |
|
VERSION |
Product version |
|
VENDOR |
Product vendor |
|
LABEL |
Source designation to be used in YaST |
|
ARCH.<base> |
Supported architectures for the base architecture |
|
DEFAULTBASE |
Default base architecture, in case the base architecture cannot be determined by YaST |
|
DESCRDIR |
The directory containing the package descriptions |
|
DATADIR |
The directory containing the packages |
PRODUCT Packman VERSION 9.0-0 LABEL Packman (SUSE LINUX 9.0) VENDOR Packman Packager Team ARCH.i686 i686 i586 i486 i386 noarch ARCH.i586 i586 i486 i386 noarch DEFAULTBASE i586 DESCRDIR setup/descr DATADIR RPMS
directory.yast
YaST uses the file if the installation source is addressed by means of a protocol that does not support directory listing (such as HTTP). This file can easily be generated with the ls utility:
ls -A1 > directory.yast
Example:
RPMS content directory.yast media.1 setup
setup/descr/*
These files can be generated with the create_package_descr script. They contain the dependencies, the size, and the package descriptions of all packages in the installation source.
Example
Your FTP server has a directory containing binary and source RPM packages for SUSE LINUX. Most binary RPM packages are available for two architectures (i586/i686). Moreover, some scripts are packed in architecture-independent RPM packages (noarch). You want to offer this directory as YaST installation source for SUSE LINUX 9.0.
/srv/ftp/pub/linux/suse/9.0/RPMS/
`- i586/
| `- software1-1.0-1.i586.rpm
| `- software2-1.0-1.i586.rpm
`- i686/
| `- software1-1.0-1.i686.rpm
| `- software2-1.0-1.i686.rpm
`- noarch/
| `- script1-1.0-1.noarch.rpm
| `- script2-1.0-1.noarch.rpm
`- src/
`- software1-1.0-1.src.rpm
`- software2-1.0-1.src.rpm
`- script1-1.0-1.src.rpm
`- script2-1.0-1.src.rpm
To generate a "real" YaST source from this directory, execute the following commands:
cd /srv/ftp/pub/linux/suse/9.0/ mkdir media.1 touch media.1/media touch content ls -A1 > directory.yast create_package_descr -d RPMS/
Further Documentation
Further documentation regarding the YaST installation sources is available in the package yast2-packagemanager-devel.
Disclaimer
The origin of this information may be internal or external to Novell. While Novell makes all reasonable efforts to verify this information, Novell does not make explicit or implied claims to its validity.