From owner-freebsd-security Fri May 12 15:24:12 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-security@freebsd.org Received: from modemcable127.61-201-24.mtl.mc.videotron.net (modemcable127.61-201-24.mtl.mc.videotron.net [24.201.61.127]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 26D0937BB25 for ; Fri, 12 May 2000 15:24:08 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from patrick@mindstep.com) Received: (qmail 76832 invoked from network); 12 May 2000 22:24:06 -0000 Received: from patrak.local.mindstep.com (HELO PATRAK) (192.168.10.4) by jacuzzi.local.mindstep.com with SMTP; 12 May 2000 22:24:06 -0000 Message-ID: <107101bfbc60$aabeb350$040aa8c0@local.mindstep.com> From: "Patrick Bihan-Faou" To: References: Subject: New packaging tool (was Re: Applying patches with out a compiler) Date: Fri, 12 May 2000 18:23:15 -0400 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2919.6700 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2919.6700 Sender: owner-freebsd-security@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Hi, I am currently working on a new version of pkg_*, which will bring a few features that I feel are missing. In no special order these are: - better dependency checking - versioning of packages (not just the name of the tar file) - upgrades procedures from one version to the next - definition of "sets" of files - signature of files + verification using any of the supported hashes (MD4, MD5, SHA, RIPEMD) - support for "special" files and file permissions (devices, flags, etc.) - support for MTREE-like storage of directory hierarchies - installing from remote locations (i.e. on NFS mounted disks) while setting the "installed package" database properly for the remote machine. - support for file sets within the package (this can be used for supporting multiple architectures (alpha, i386) with one package) So far I have implemented the creation of the package tar file and support files with most of these feature. I also added enough smarts to update an existing package to the new format, so my changes are backward compatible. One thing that I want to include, but I can't find a way to preserver "tar compatibility" is self-signature of the package itself. I am debating whether this is important enough that tar compatibility can be dropped or not... I am also integrating this with the world build process so I can install many machines from a package. I am doing this for another project so this is my work these days, and you can expect something withing 2-3 weeks. If there is enough interest in the FreeBSD community, I would like to contribute it to the project. Otherwise, I will probably only make it available as a port. However considering the potential benefits for the community at large, I think it would be nice to have this as the "standard" packaging tool. I appreciate any comments/criticism on my work, so please don't by shy !!! Patrick. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-security" in the body of the message