>Hi Jean, Alok,
>
>that service was introduced by Casper's enhancement to SV4R packaging stuff:
>
>http://arc.opensolaris.org/caselog/PSARC/2009/173/20090312_casper.dik
>
>...
>
> /var/svc/manifest/system/pkgserv.xml
> - defines svc:/system/pkgserv:default
> - runs "pkgadm sync -q" at boot and shutdown time.
> - write the contents file if needed, picks up the pieces
> if pkgserv is killed, makes sure the pkgserv exits.
>
>...
>
>I guess we could just disable it in AI and LiveCD images, but we would need
>to check with Casper if there are no other dependencies - e.g. if SVR4
>packaging
>tools still work correctly even if this SMF service is disabled.
The service serves two purposes:
- when the system boots and the system wasn't properly shutdown,
it will roll the contents logfile into the contents file
- when the system shutdown, it makes sure that "pkgserv" quits;
the pkgserv will write the contents file to disk before it quits.
For a LiveCD or a AI-install image, I don't see any particular reason
why it needs to be running: both a LiveCD and a AI-install image will
not have SVr4 packages installed to the root.
>I saw this on x86 as well as on Sparc in AI/LiveCD images I built for testing
>purposes. I install testing stuff into proto area by means of SVR4 package
>tools and I ended up with stale lock files in proto area - not sure why
>they were not removed.
I'm not sure what a stale lock file looks line; if you use pkgadd to add
packages to the proto area, you should really run:
pkgadm sync -R /root/dir -q
This makes sure the pkgserv which is started to maintain the contents file
quits before you unmount or create the image from the proto area.
As you surmised, there's no need to run this service on a read-only root.
Casper
