Upgrade server

This software needs to be packaged!

These are basic instructions for installing an upgrade server. This feature is available for testing but is not yet released.

The source code for the updates server is available at:

http://dev.laptop.org/git?p=users/cscott/upgrade-server

From a basic Debian etch installation, the following will yield a functioning updates server:

# apt-get install xinetd rsync git-core python2.5 file fakeroot bzip2 zip unzip
# adduser upserv
# passwd -l upserv
# su upserv
$ cd ~
$ mkdir builds
$ git clone git://dev.laptop.org/users/cscott/upgrade-server

Make sure that /home/upserv/upgrade-server/upserv.py has:

UPSERV_DIR = "/home/upserv/builds"
EXTRACT_BUILD = "/home/upserv/upgrade-server/extract-build.sh"

As root, create a new /etc/xinetd.d/rsyncd file:

# default: off
# description: The rsync server is a good addition to an ftp server, as it \
#       allows crc checksumming etc.
service rsync
{
       disable = no
       socket_type     = stream
       wait            = no
       user            = upserv
       group           = upserv
       groups          = yes
       server          = /home/upserv/upgrade-server/upserv.py
       server_args     = server
#      log_on_failure  += USERID  # this invokes identd, which is often unfriendly
       per_source      = UNLIMITED
}

Change the localhost line in /etc/hosts to:

127.0.0.1       localhost updates updates.laptop.org

Restart xinetd.

# /etc/init.d/xinetd restart

• Some versions of inetd/xinetd, used to run the upgrade server, generate an AUTH request when you connect, so an ident server on the system running rsync may be helpful, Debian package oidentd is sufficient.

How the upgrade server works

The upgrade server downloads builds on demand and installs them in a 'builds' directory. It then garbage-collects old builds from 'builds' to maintain the size of the build directory at a specified size (16GB by default). It deletes the build "last accessed the longest time ago", except if the build has a special "sticky" file present, which will cause that build to be preserved from collection.