On Sat, 2005-09-10 at 13:46, Les Mikesell wrote: > On Sat, 2005-09-10 at 11:23, Scot L. Harris wrote: > > > > > > 1. It might be good if you could pass a date as a command line option > > > to yum ... and have yum not consider anything after that date as being > > > in the repo. > > > > > > That is a good suggestion for the yum mailing list: > > > https://lists.linux.duke.edu/mailman/listinfo/yum > > > > Which fails if the repo you are pointing to has to restore the repo > > files and the datetime stamp changes.... > > If you don't restore in a way that maintains the timestamp, every > mirror is going to have to suck a fresh copy of the whole > repository. I'd expect the maintainers to already be careful > about that. > > > IMHO a completely different application should be used. This > > application is mostly a database that tracks a list of rpms. If you > > want to build a copy of a system you select the particular snapshot (the > > list of rpm versions you decided was the image) and the new utility > > proceeds to pull those rpms from the repo and install them on the target > > system. This new application would allow you to create multiple > > snapshots and select which one you wanted to use. > > That would be better in the sense that it could detect errors > like files being removed from the repository. If the > repository only has additions, the timestamp is all > you need to recreate the list of rpms that were present at > any time. If you are going to the trouble of doing something > more complicated, it should involve tying repository update > 'sets' of rpms together so that a client could tell if > all needed files were present at a mirror site instead of > just failing dependencies when a partial update requires > a missing file. > > > Trying to cram this into yum is IMHO going to make yum overly complex > > and more difficult to use. > > Repeatable operations are more than just a nice idea in > the computer world... And making everyone who wants a > repeatable yum update store a whole repository snapshot > for every point they need just doesn't seem like an > efficient way to get that. I think you missed the point. The new application stores a list of the rpms that make up your snapshot not the actual rpms. You can have many snapshots in the database. The repo is just that a repo of packages. The new app pulls the packages that are part of your snapshot. Of course if you were doing this for a large enterprise you would be running your own repo anyways with packages moved from a testing repo to the staging and then production repos as you verify each package does what is expected. That is how you get your repeatable operations. But then I think this has been discussed previously several times in this thread. Nothing of value will come from any further discussion of this topic in this thread.