How to create a .depot file from an exisitng depot?

[Tony Williams]

I need to get RSP installed on several remote HP-UX servers. I have a local depot created but the install took 3 hours over the network. Is there a way to copy my existing depot to a depot file that I can copy to the remote servers and install the software locally?

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi Tony:

A valid SD depot file can simply be copied ('rc', 'scp', FTP) to another server and the installation performed there.

Regards!

...JRF...

[Tony Williams]

Hi James,

Thanks for the info but what I have is a several applications in a directory that is registered as a depot:

swlist -d @ /depot/Diagnostics
# Initializing...
# Contacting target "idns2"...
#
# Target:
/depot/Diagnostics
#

#
# Bundle(s):
#

EventMonitoring A.04.20.23.04 Event Monitoring Service
OnlineDiag B.11.23.13.03 HPUX 11.23 Support Tools Bundle, September 2009
OpenSSL A.00.09.07l.007 Secure Network Communications Protocol
SysMgmtBASE B.00.02.03.03 SysMgmtBASE
SysMgmtWeb A.3.0.1.1 HP-UX Web Based System Management User Interfaces
WBEMSvcs A.02.07.04 HP WBEM Services for HP-UX
hpuxwsApache B.2.0.59.07.03 HP-UX Apache-based Web Server
hpuxwsTomcat B.5.5.27.01.01 HP-UX Tomcat-based Servlet Engine
hpuxwsWebmin A.1.070.10 HP-UX Webmin-based Admin

Can I tar the directory and copy it tothe remote server and register it on the remote server?

[Torsten.]

Hi Tony,

>>Can I tar the directory and copy it to the remote server and register it on the remote server?

Yes.

[Steven E. Protter]

Shalom,

The file copy is going to take a long time, assuming the RSP depot is big and thats why the installation took a long time.

On the target system, you might want to check that DNS name resolution is working properly, because a named install from an NFS share is going to look up the name many times.

scp, ftp, rcp, and doing the install locally will as you want bypass the problem. Detecting the actual cause of the problem might be somewhat useful.

SEP

[Tony Williams]

Thansk Steven,

I'll give it a second look. I assume its because its a fractional T1 line running at 128 Kb, but its probably worth looking to see what's limiting bandwidth.

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi (again):

There is no need to register ('swreg') your copied depot unless you wish to utilize it over the network; and you said that was not your objective.

Regards!

...JRF...

[Tim Nelson]

If DNS is not causing your issue then I would second the motion to simply tar and gzip the depot .

ftp it to your server

gunzip / untar

swinstall

( as mentioned there is no need to register it. swreg is only needed if you are creating a respository on one server to server other servers. )

I would bet $1 that by the time you get all this done you would have spent the same amount of time, barring the mentioned DNS possibility )

Other options: These packages should all be on one of the Core DVDs or application DVDs, order or make copies, ship via fedex.. ?

[Tony Williams]

The directory was 250 MB I tar'd it and gzipped down to 125 MB. I used scp to copy it over the network locally (GBe) and it took 17 seconds. I scp'd it over the remote network and it took 17 minutes, the install took another 10 minutes. The swinstall over the remote network took 1 hour 20 minutes, so I saved 50 minutes of work time and 63 minutes of network congestion. I have to do this about 30 more times so this is awesome.

Thanks everyone for all of the suggestions.

[Bob E Campbell · Accepted solution]

I would either use swcopy(1m) to copy or swpackage(1m) to create a depot file. The command for the latter is given as an example on the man page:

swpackage -s /var/spool/sw -x media_type=tape @ /dev/rmt/0m

Replace that tape device with a file that is *not* a tape device and you are good to go.

[Steven Schweda]

> [...] simply tar and gzip the depot .
>
> ftp it to your server
>
> gunzip / untar
>
> swinstall

Or, if you can do remsh/ssh (without a
password), then you should be able to
pipeline the whole mess, obviating the
intermediate temporary file.

A Forum search for keywords like
tar pipeline remsh
should find abundant examples.

As always, if your stuff is too big for your
"tar" program, then "pax" or GNU "tar" may be
a better choice.

And, if the CPUs are much faster than the
network, then using bzip2 instead of gzip
might also pay off.

[Tony Williams]

Thanks Bob,

swpackage works as well as tar'ing the direcoties, the depot file is that same size as the tar file and compressed to the same level. swpackage took a bit longer to execute than tar but not by much.

swpackage -s /depot/Diagnostics -x media_type=tape @ ./Diagnostics.depot

[Bob E Campbell]

The big difference is that you can install from the swpackage file directly, and there *might* be alignments of the planets that let the tar ball be used for installation, but I wouldn't hold my breath...

[Dennis Handly]

>The directory was 250 MB I tar'd it and gzipped down to 125 MB

That's surprising. The files in a depot are usually gzipped. But the metadata files aren't.

>Bob: The big difference is that you can install from the swpackage file directly,

And you can use swcopy/swpackage to subset your depot if you don't want to copy all of it.

[Bob E Campbell]

Dennis is right in that software that HP ships directly is usually internally compressed. For locally built depots you can swcopy them into a compressed form using the "-x compress_files=true" (ignore the -x compress_index option).

Failing that, the .depot file can be gzipped for xfer but will need to be expanded to use.

[Bob E Campbell]

Someone here deeper in the code assures me that movement by a tar ball can also have issues with ACLs. Potentially even the default ACLs...

Use swpackage(1m) or swcopy(1m).

[Tony Williams]

Thanks for that piece of info Bob. I used both and liked swpackage better because it offered the most verification that everything went well, i.e. log output, and the swverify tool. I also like it because when I document how to do this the instructions are easier using swpackage than tar.

The tar worked well but doesn't give you any feedback until you actually try and use it.

[Bob E Campbell]

Good to hear! I will admit to all that I sometimes use "tar tvf" as a quick sanity check for serial depots.

[Dennis Handly]

>Bob: Someone here deeper in the code assures me that movement by a tar ball can also have issues with ACLs.

I had someone that used tar and I couldn't believe it could work.
I told him to come over to the SD dark side and use swpackage.