Re: New Current Server Installation

On Mon, 2002-10-28 at 18:06, John Berninger wrote:
> OK, here goes...
> 

> > The directory trees look like 
> > 
> > linux/7.2/en/os/i386/RedHat/RPMS 
> > 
> >    where 7.2 can be 7.3 or 8.0 and all of the installation RPMs are
> > present
> > 
> > linux/updates/1.0/en/os/athlon
> > 
> >   where 1.0 can be anything up to 8.0 and athlon can be i38, i586, i686,
> > or noarch.
> > 
> > 
> > I installed 1.4.2, and configured it, and started httpd.  The first time
> > I tried rhn_register on the server, it failed, but the second time, it
> > worked.  I didn't change anything, I just reran rhn_register.
>         That's really puzzling, but we'll go with it.

You get a big ? from me too.

> 
> > Now, I want to make all of the channels, and I have no idea what to do
> > next.
> > 
> > >From the current.conf file, we find:
> > 
> > valid_channels = redhat-7.3-i386
> > 
> > Is that a comma-separated or whitespace separated list or something
> > else?
>         Purely whitespace separated.
> 
> > Now what do I do for the athlon, etc. channels, or does the i386 channel
> > contain them all?
>         The channel name doesn 't have to contain an arch designation.
> The only thing to keep in mind that each channel has a single and unique
> OS revision -- arch pair.  (e.g. you can have 7.2-i386 and 7.3-i386, but
> you can't have 7.2-i386 and 7.2-foo-i386).  The arch of a particular
> channel is the /base/ arch for that channel, so in an i386 channel, you
> would (probably) want to server out i386, i486 (where applicable), i586,
> i686, athlon, and noarch (where applicable) RPMS.

The other thing to realize is that the list of whitespace separated
things in 'valid_channels' are the 'labels'. TYPICALLY, I've included
the os release and the arch in the channel label. However, it can be any
unique text string.

'bob' is just as valid here as 'redhat-7.3-i386'

The os_release and arch vars in the channel desription itself are the
ones that must be tied to reality.

> 
> > I made this, when I was going to copy all of the RPMS into one
> > directory, and then, from reading the mailing list archives, I found
> > that I could use a mirror from RedHat (Yay!!!).  So what do I have to do
> > for the directory structure now?
> > 
> > rpm_dirs = /home/redhat-7.3/i386/RedHat/RPMS
> >            /home/redhat-7.3/i386/other-pkgs/rh-updates 
>         Basically, yes.  Simply list all the directories that contains
> RPMS that should be in this channel, one per line.
> 
> > >From the mailing list, current uses pgsql, but I see no notice about
> > having to start it.  Do I need to add service postgresql start to my
> > startup and configure it?
>         Well, no...  PostgreSQL support is in the works, and we've
> actually got BK trees for it, but those trees are so development they
> don't work.  You want to use the latest 1.4.x release - don't worry
> about PostgreSQL.  It's not there yet.
> 
> > In the current.httpd.conf file, the line:
> > 
> > Alias /XMLRPC/$RHN /home/current/www
> > 
> > What does this refer to?  Is this the root directory for the .rpm
> > files?  
>         Yes and no.  The /home/current/www is the "current_dir" from
> your current.conf file, which is where Current sets up it's directory
> structure to handle requests.  This is where the "cadmin
> create_apache_config" and "cadmin check_perms" come in - those two
> commands (or whatever the actual options are, it's been a few days since
> I've looked at that code) make sure the correct configuration file is
> generated and that the permissions on the current_dir directory tree are
> okay.

Actually, /home/current is 'current_dir'.

All the 'GET' type requests from the clients hit that directory tree.
Its a mix of files created/maintained by current for you, and some
symlinks so that you can for instance use a full redhat mirror.

I once thought for about 30 seconds about not letting people use a full
mirror (it would make the code easier), but the mailing list beat me
stupid.



> 
> > As payment for the answers to my many questions, I will fix the
> > documentation to be more explanatory in these areas.
>         Many thanks - the docs sorely need help!  :)
> 
> -- 
> Thank you,
> John Berninger
> 
> Systems Administrator		[email protected]
> Department of Mathematics	Box 8205, Harrelson Hall
> NC State University		Raleigh, NC 27695
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> 
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> --
-- 
Hunter Matthews                          Unix / Network Administrator
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