Re: DPKGPackageCheck() implementation.

[Morten Werner Olsen]

On Sat, Mar 13, 2004 at 03:17:02PM -0600, Russell Adams wrote:

> I've been testing the enclosed configuration for my network.
> 
> I figured this was on topic, but didn't require a module.
> 
> Basically I'm maintaining packages by editing the output from "dpkg
> --get-selection" kept in a text file. This is imported with
> UpdatePackageLists, and any missing packages installed via
> DselectUpgrade.

The problem I see here is when you want to have different
configuration (packages installed) on your hosts. In my project, I
have a lot of servers with the same base configuration but the servers
are going to run different services from what the customer wants. In
the same configuration we also want to add the inhouse servers,
workstations and laptops. Then we could reuse the base configuration
and the configuration for some of the services.

If I should have used dpkg's --[get|set]-selections, I have had to have
one dpkg --get-selections file for each service, but now I make one
Cfengine-file for each service, which I find more general and clean. I
also like the idea of having as much configuration information as
possible in the Cfengine setup, and minimize the usage of external
files (masterfiles, info-files like the output from dpkg
--get-selections and scripts).

But I understand that in smaller configurations, usage of dpkg's
--[get|set]-selections is easier and fully functional. I'm also
interested in weaknesses you can see in my config (would be great
material for my project report)! :)


- Werner