Joe Van Dyk wrote:
One way that I handle this problem is that I have a base package upon which almost all other packages depend. This base package has tons of "Requires" lines that ensure that the mount points are set up, core packages are installed, configuration files exist, etc., and a pre-install script that ensures various user accounts exist with proper UIDs, groups with their proper GIDs exist, configuration files have the proper entries, etc. This ensures that system is properly configured before I get it.We don't use dhcp, so we need to specify a nameserver in /etc/resolv.conf. I suppose the user could specify that during the install, but I'd still like to have an RPM that changes it to the correct value. Installing Clearcase requires adding entries to /etc/fstab. Also, we have NFS mounts that are standard on some machines.
The configuration of these items is not something for which RPM is well suited. For example, some items it checks for are in NIS maps that have to be centrally managed. However, RPM can help ensure that the server and its environment are properly configured before the software gets installed.
Rob