Another viable solution to this is using fou4s depending on how much you want to replicate. I am using fou4s successfully to patches update. See http://fou4s.gaugusch.at/ On Tuesday 25 February 2003 11:53, Tom Emerson wrote:
On Monday 24 February 2003 7:06 pm, Graham Smith wrote:
On Tue, 25 Feb 2003 13:03, Tom Emerson wrote:
I've just finished installing yet another computer which ... I'm thinking of making it a source for future installs. [and updates]
[...]
Is it possible to "rsynch" the ftp directory that SuSE provides ... ?
I just automated all YOU updates at work. Have a look at this SDB article. Mirroring the Update Directories for YOU http://sdb.suse.de/sdb/en/html/mlasars_yousync.html
Thanks -- I think I've seen that article before, just wanted confirmation that it is still relative current and "nothing new" has come out. It is interesting to note a comment or two they make:
"Situation You want to mirror the current patches and updates locally and distribute them to other computers on your network. This might be necessary if the machines are protected by a firewall or if you want to save bandwidth.
The configuration of a local YOU server exceeds the scope of our free of charge installation support. However, you are welcome to refer to our Business Support Service."
This is interesting because one would think it is in SuSE's best interest to reduce the "load" from their own servers and ISP connections [they are in germany, after all, where I hear they charge by the byte in either direction ;) ] They further compound this by saying the following:
"Mirroring the Packages First, find a server that allows mirroring (not ftp.suse.com) and read the server's mirror policy carefully. For mirroring purposes, use, for example, rsync"
Again, why NOT ftp.suse.com? How will a "mirroring" operation differ from a client performing a legitimate update? [ok, semi-easy answer: not EVERYONE installs EVERY package, yet an rsynch operation WILL get every package. What they fail to realize or remember is that rsynch will get every package ONCE, then only download packages that are new or updated.]
To further round this out, I still think it would be better to download the [potentially] 100's of packages that "aren't part of the 'default' installation, but are available as an update" than it would to repeatedly download the packages that ARE part of the update. After all, the "unneeded" download occurs once, yet from what I've seen, YOU repeatedly downloads "update" packages even if the "update" has been applied and the FTP server indicates the update file hasn't changed since it was actually used...
-- Jim Hamilton Perth, Australia