[csw-maintainers] Package browser enhancement (was Re: Bug in HTML on our website)

[Philip Brown]

On 12/13/10, Dagobert Michelsen <dam at opencsw.org> wrote:
> Hi Phil,
>
> Am 13.12.2010 um 17:47 schrieb Philip Brown:
>
>> As you say, some packages have dependencies. MANY dependencies. It
>> doesnt make sense to manually link to ONE package for manual download,
>> when the user will then have to manually go download individually, 40
>> other packages as well.
>> And 40 is not exaggeration.
>
> No problem: Button: "Load package with dependencies" which has a
> pre-packaged,
> compressed .pkg with all dependencies in it just enough to install the
> package.
> And a commandline just like the one in pkgutil "streaming-mode" output.
> It would have saved me some work from time to time on customer sites without
> server internet access.
>


Umm. wow. Interesting idea!
I wouldnt say "no problem".. there is quite noticable work to do.
Someone would have to do a noticable amount of coding.

it's certainly a SOLVABLE problem. but definately a "problem", I
think. It's almost on the level of providing our own "IPS" style
service, but on a package level, rather than a file level.

Here's a thought:
How about writing this as some more generic service. Either as a
standalone server, or some kind of CGI plugin.
Service would:
  - Given a directory of packages, a catalog file for those packages
(with dependancies),
    and an HTTP(S) request for a package, would put together a stream
of all those packages.

Then make a package of that service demon.
pkgadd it and get it running at (your choice of server: possibly
rsync.opencsw.org)

Then once that is working, then we have our website enabled for
"one-shot" downloading like you were saying.

hmm?
I think offering a package of something like this, would be an
interesting demon/service to the solaris community at large, not just
us.