fou4s - Fast OnlineUpdate for SuSE
Copyright (C) 2002-2010 Markus Gaugusch <fou4s@gaugusch.at>

Features:
=========

* Tested with SuSE 8.1 to 11.3 (automatic release detection) and most
  business products (eMail-Server 3.1, SLES 7/8/9/10, SLOX 4.x)
* Fou4s gets the patch descriptions from an FTP/HTTP server (Can be set 
  in /etc/fou4s.conf, or using the --server option). This is on demand only and 
  not every time. Only changed/new patch descriptions are actually downloaded.
* Fou4s compares downloaded description files with installed RPMs and prints
  differences (version number). Full automatic update installation is supported
  as well. The detailed update descriptions can also be shown (parameter -v)
* Bandwith limiting. Since fou4s 0.10, a download limit in kb/s can be set.
* Download and export updates for other (offline) hosts.
* Support for external HTTP download URLs (e.g. NVidia drivers)
* Downloads and installs the RPMs using wget or curl (with continue option -
  interrupted downloads will be resumed)
* Everything except real upgrade can be done as normal user.
* Signature checking - Non-SuSE packages will be rejected (with the exception
  of fou4s updates, which are signed with another key only for fou4s).
  To install your own packages, the signing key of the package must be fully
  trusted.
* Runs SuSEconfig after an update (can be turned off)
* HTTP proxy support (using the environment variable http_proxy, which is used 
  by wget/curl then)


Known Bugs/Missing features
===========================

Please see the KNOWN-BUGS file.

Documentation
=============

Except from this README and the web page, there are two manual pages:
fou4s(1) and fou4s.conf(5). 
Of course, the shell script fou4s itself is documented, too. But don't 
expect too much :)


Screenshot
==========

fou4s v0.13.1  (c) 2002-2005 Markus Gaugusch <fou4s@gaugusch.at>
usage: fou4s -u [-bqv] [--checkfou4s] [--patchescont] [--proxyuser]
                [--proxypasswd]
       fou4s -e [--all] [-bdosv] [--proxyuser] [--proxypasswd]
       fou4s --auto [-nosv]
       fou4s -i [-abcdgnorsv] [-f file] [--interactive] [--nodeps]
                [--proxyuser] [--proxypasswd]
       fou4s -l [-os]
       fou4s --server [-vw] [--proxyuser] [--proxypasswd]
       fou4s --checkdeleted
       fou4s --fixperm
Type fou4s --help for more information.
See the manual page fou4s(1) for detailed help.


Download
========

You can get fou4s at http://fou4s.gaugusch.at/
I RECOMMEND EVERYONE TO USE THE RPM PACKAGE, because it comes with a good 
configuration file, everything is preconfigured, and automatic updates of fou4s
itself are possible. Also, it is signed with my gpg key:
fou4s@gaugusch.at/Fingerprint CF56 897E 834F F180 E941  0E50 0EA1 932B AFB6 6D7C
You can also use the Makefile and do "make install" yourself, but there is no 
(maintained) uninstall.

The tar.bz2 file can be used to create an RPM package:
rpm --target noarch -bb fou4s-0.x.y.tar.bz2
The RPM file is stored in /usr/src/packages/RPMS/noarch/fou4s-0.x.y-z.noarch.rpm


Config File
===========

The following files are tried to be used as a config file:
~/.fou4s # this has the highest priority and is the default
/etc/fou4s.conf
It is automatically created, if none is found and you use the --server option 
to select another server.

See the manual page fou4s.conf(5) for more information about the config file.


Quick Start
===========

RPM version:
rpm -Uvh fou4s-0.x.y-z.noarch.rpm
fou4s --server -w # select ftp server (not necessary, default: 
                                       download.opensuse.org)
fou4s -u --checkfou4s # get update description files for suse and fou4s
fou4s -ev # check for updates, but no download/install (evaluation)
fou4s -i # download and install all available updates

tar.bz2 version:
tar --bzip2 -xvf fou4s-0.x.y.tar.bz2
cd fou4s-0.x.y
./fou4s --server -w
./fou4s -u --checkfou4s 
./fou4s -ev
./fou4s -i
Note: On SuSE >= 8.0, tar xIvf doesn't work anymore, you have to use xjvf.
The --bzip2 option is universal.

After installation, you probably want to install fou4s in cronjob mode:
Run fou4s --cronserver or fou4s --cronworkstation (as root). The server
variant runs every day at a fixed time, while in workstation mode, fou4s is
called together with the other cron.daily scripts.
If you use the RPM version of fou4s, normal users must have write permissions 
in /var/cache/fou4s/* to make fou4s work. Beginning with version 0.4, members 
of the group fou4s (automatically created during RPM installation) are allowed 
to write there.


Contributions/Thanks
====================

Thanks to Christian Erpelding <che at ce-data dot de> 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 <kk at verfaction dot de> for beta testing 0.0.3 and 
some suggestions for functionality.
Thanks to Guenther Sommer <gue at rettung dot at> for the ftp-benchmark utility 
contributed to 0.1.0.
Thanks to Gottfried Necker <gottfried.necker at iket dot fzk dot de>, who sent 
me a patch fixing UseFullPath in 0.4.1.
Many thanks to Lars Ellenberg <l.g.e at web dot de>, who sent me MANY improvements for 
0.7.0 and later - I really learnt a LOT from you!

And finally, thanks to the following people, who contributed by suggesting
new features or reporting bugs (no particular order):
Thomas Schallar
Peter Poeml <poeml at cmdline dot net>
Steffen Dettmer <steffen at dett dot de>
Christoph Thiel <ct at kki dot org>
Bernhard Held <bheld at mgpi dot de>
Peter Suetterlin <pit at hst33127 dot phys dot uu dot nl>
Bernd Krger-Knauber <bkk at infratec-plus dot de>
Ren Gallati <rene at gallati dot net>
Alexander Reach <reach at martinsfeld dot de>
Anatol Studler <studler at ise dot ch>
Manfred Larcher <mlarcher at pirlo dot com>
Michael T Hintsala <michael dot hintsala at fi dot ibm dot com>
Kevin Ivory <Ivory at SerNet dot de>
Robert C dot  Paulsen Jr dot  <robert at paulsenonline dot net>
Hans Foertsch <hans_foertsch at hotmail dot com>
Markus Winkler <mw at jku dot at>


Contact
=======

http://fou4s.gaugusch.at/
Markus Gaugusch <fou4s@gaugusch.at>
