fou4s - Fast OnlineUpdate for SuSE Copyright (C) 2002 Markus Gaugusch Features: ========= * Tested with 6.4, 7.1, 7.2 and 7.3 (automatic release detection) * Gets the package descriptions from FTP server (Can be set in /etc/fou4s, or using the --server option). This is on demand only and not every time. Only changed/new package descriptions are actually downloaded. HTTP servers are supported, too. * Compares downloaded description files with installed RPMs and prints differences (Version number) * Support for external http URLs (e.g. NVidia drivers) * Downloads and installs the RPMs using wget (with continue option - aborted downloads will be resumed) * Everything except real upgrade can be done as normal user. (if the RPM and package description directory are writeable for the user) * Signature checking - Non-SuSE packages will be rejected * Runs SuSEconfig after an update (can be turned off) * FTP and HTTP Server proxy support!! * FTP benchmark utility included (written by Guenther Sommer ) Bugs/Missing features: ====================== * Update descriptions are very ugly - The text in the package descriptions is so badly formatted, that I should do some pretty printing to make it user-friendly readable. * Package description on the ftp server are in update/patches/* and update/patches.cont/* - the patches.cont directory exists only in 7.3, but we check it for >=7.3 (for safety), which gives a small error when updating the package descriptions. This is harmless, though. * Some servers download additional files in http mode (gd.tuwien.ac.at) Despite a bunch of wget options I could not circumvent this. These additional downloaded files don't really harm, but are annoying. Documentation ============= Except from this README and the web page, there are two manual pages: fou4s(1) and fou4s(5). Use "man 1 fou4s" or "man 5 fou4s" to view them. Of course, the shell script fou4s itself is documented, too. But don't expect too much :) Screenshot ========== fou4s v0.2.0 (c) 2002 Markus Gaugusch usage: fou4s [task] [options] task: -u, update Get new package list from FTP server and exit -i, upgrade Compare package list with RPM db and get/install packages -e, donothing Eveluate, if new updates should be installed (no dl/install) -l, --list List available RPMs (for use with -f) --server Select ftp server to use (interactive) options: -a Install every package immediately after downloading -c Do not run SuSEconfig after update (requires -i) -d Check packages and download RPMs (no installation) -f custom.rpm Try to process the given file. Option -l shows available RPMs -g, --nogpg Skip GPG signature verification (beware!) -h Short help --help Show this help screen --interactive Interactive mode (ask before downloading/installing a package) -n, --nodownload Do not attempt to download RPM files --nodeps Don't make RPM dependency checks (DANGEROUS!) -o Skip optional packages (process everything else) -q Quiet mode (for cron-jobs) -r Remove downloaded packages after successful update -s Only process security updates (nothing else) -w Update /etc/suseservers (only valid with --server) -v, --verbose Verbose mode (twice for even more verbosity) Download ======== You can get fou4s at http://www.gaugusch.at/fou4s The tar.bz2 can be used to create an RPM package: rpm -bb fou4s-0.2.0.tar.bz2 The RPM file is stored in /usr/src/packages/RPMS/i386/fou4s-0.2.0-1.i386.rpm Actually this should be noarch, but I haven't figured out yet, how to do so. I recommend everyone to use the RPM, because it comes with a good configuration file, and everything is preconfigured. You can also use the Makefile and do "make install" yourself, but there is no uninstall. Config File =========== The following files are tried to be used as a config file: /etc/fou4s ~/.fou4s ./.fou4s # this has the highest priority and is the default It is automatically created, if you use the --server option to select another server. See the manual page fou4s(5) for more information: man 5 fou4s Quick Start =========== tar.bz2 version: tar xIvf fou4s-0.2.0.tar.bz2 cd fou4s-0.2.0 ./fou4s --server # select ftp server ./fou4s -u # update package descriptions ./fou4s -e # check for updates, but no install (evaluation) ./fou4s -i # install all available updates RPM version: rpm -ivh fou4s-0.2.0-1.i386.rpm /usr/sbin/fou4s --server /usr/sbin/fou4s -u /usr/sbin/fou4s -e /usr/sbin/fou4s -i Try as non-root first, if you are unsure what happens. If you use the RPM version, the user must have write permissions in /var/cache/fou4s/* Contributions/Thanks ==================== Thanks to Christian Erpelding for some enhancements to 0.0.1 - I had most of them already in mind, but it's good to know, what other people want :) Thanks to Kilian Krause for beta testing 0.0.3 and some suggestions for functionality. Thanks to Guenther Sommer for the ftp-benchmark utility contributed to 0.1.0. And finally, thanks to the following people, who contributed by suggesting new features or reporting bugs (no particular order): Steffen Dettmer Bernhard Held Peter Suetterlin Bernd Krüger-Knauber René Gallati" Alexander Reach Contact ======= http://www.gaugusch.at/fou4s/ Markus Gaugusch