On Thu, 13 Apr 2006, Kielek, Samuel wrote: > > If a file is already in place, and is > > the right file (because it was previously installed onto a > > shared disk or filesystem) older RPM would choke. > > I'm not sure I understand this one. You mean if you have multiple > servers sharing a filesystem and you install a RPM on that filesystem, > RPM fails? Is it a read-only filesystem? How would the file already be > there if you haven't yet installed the package? ...
What I mean is, say you share /usr among several Linuxen. I'm talking about running on z/VM so the sharing is at the disk level so this filesystem must be read-only. In some maintenance mode, you install a particular RPM. In this maint mode, ONE Linux guest has the /usr disk read-write. Some of the files from that RPM land under /usr and some land elsewhere. Since some files land outside of the shared space, you'll have to re-run RPM on each Linux sharing this filesystem. But when you run it on the others, they'll see /usr as read-only. The additional smarts RPM needs is that when putting files into place if a file is already there, and is the right file, no problem. Earlier versions of RPM (including what I believe is shipped in current releases of RH and SuSE) would explicitly try to re-write every file in the package. On stand-alone systems, this makes sense. In a shared environment, it's a problem. A better way to handle all this might be to NOT RUN RPM at all on the sharing guests, but only run it on the maint guest. I'm thinking of keeping an inventory of what gets installed and cobbling up automation to synch-up the others afterward. This is not rocket science, but it does take forethought. -- R; ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390
