Implementation: Basics

• apt-get takes care of installing packages and their dependencies (computed automatically) via nfs/http/ftp

• changesets are a comprized of a shell script and a compressed tar archive containing optional files used by the update (just two files to retreive, which is easier for http/ftp)

• getupdates is the core of the install and update mechanism and pulls changesets via nfs/http/ftp.

  • getupdates runs at install time and from cron, checks the update server for a list of changesets for the client's $TARGET, and retrieves the update if it's new, or if it's been modified since the last time it was run.

Notes: