RE: What tools to use for multipackage download and install?

["Aaron Hanson" <a hanson f5 com>]

>-----Original Message-----
>From: rpm-list-admin@redhat.com [mailto:rpm-list-admin@redhat.com] On
Behalf Of Tom Diehl
>Sent: Thursday, January 08, 2004 8:09 AM
>To: RPM Mailing List
>Subject: Re: What tools to use for multipackage download and install?
>
>
>On Thu, 8 Jan 2004, Toralf Lund wrote:
>
>> We have some software for Linux, mainly Red Hat 7.3 or 9, distributed
>> across the net in the form of multiple, interdependent rpm packages.
A 
>> user will typically install one "application" package that utilises a

>> number of custom "base" or "library" packages. These in turn rely on 
>> "OS" packages, as well as some external freeware packages that are 
>> somewhat non-standard and may or may not be installed already; we
also 
>> provide our own versions of these in case they are needed.
>
>Have a look at either yum (http://linux.duke.edu/yum/) or apt-rpm. Yum
will allow things like yum >install foo. Where foo is the package name
you want to install. It will resolve the deps and pull >in the needed
packages for you (assuming they are available). I am told apt-rpm will
do the same >thing although I have no personal experience with it.

	Recent versions of rpm have some good support for automatic
dependency resolution built right in; the --aid option. First, use
'rpmcache' to create the reference database. Then, adjust the following
macros in the target system. Example:

    %_solve_dbpath
/usr/lib/rpmdb/%{_arch}-%{_vendor}-%{_os}/redhat
    %_solve_pkgsdir         /8.0/i386/
    %_solve_name_fmt
%{?_solve_pkgsdir}%%{NAME}-%%{VERSION}-%%{RELEASE}.%%{ARCH}.rpm

	Then, 'rpm -i --aid <package>' should be hands-free. Here's one
caveat:

http://www.redhat.com/mailman/private/rpm-list/2003-January/msg00075.htm
l

	Hope this helps.

-Aaron