rcmirror

NAME

rcmirror - mirrors channels of software, in whole or in part, from a remote Red Carpet server to a local Red Carpet server or to a local directory.  

SYNTAX

rcmirror [--conf config-file] [--dry-run] rcmirror [--help]

This command takes no arguments and reads all necessary information from the configuration file. A step-by-step guide to rcmirror.conf creation is included in the Red Carpet Enterprise online help.

DESCRIPTION

The rcmirror command downloads whole or partial channels of software, from a remote Red Carpet Enterprise server, then creates channels using those software on a local managed Red Carpet Enterprise server. Typically, it is used to redistribute entire channels within a Red Carpet Enterprise network. For example, a system administrator could distribute Red Hat 8.0 and all its updates to an internal network by mirroring the Ximian Red Hat 8.0 channel. In this case, rcmirror would be added as a cron job and run regularly to ensure that the packages available through the local server matched those of the remote server.

During use, rcmirror will connect to the remote server, the local server, and to the rcman program, authenticating itself each time. It should be run on the same system as rcman and the rest of the Red Carpet Enterprise server, and will require root privileges.  

OPTIONS

--conf=, -c [filename]

Specify a different configuration file. The default is /etc/ximian/rcmirror.conf.

--dry-run, -n

Print the packages that would be mirrored or added. Do not actually mirror anything.

--email=[address]

Send output to specified email address.

--help, -h, -?

Output help information and exit.

--list-channels, -l

List the channels available on the system you are contacting. Channels to be mirrored are specified in the configuration file.

--list-components=, -o [productname]

Lists the components that make up a given product. A component is a set of individual software packages that makes up a subset of the programs in a product. For example, the components of the "ximian-desktop-2" product are core, devel, gnome-office, misc, openoffice, and commercial, representing the base desktop, developer tools, office tools, miscellaneous software, the OpenOffice.Org suite, and additional commercial software (Ximian Destkop 2 Professional Edition only).

-p, --list-packages= [channel]

List the available packages in the channel you specify.

-a, --list-patches= [channel]

List the available patches in the channel you specify.

--list-products, -r

Applies only to Ximian servers. Lists the products, such as "ximian-evolution" or "ximian-desktop-2," available for mirroring from the server.

--local

Used with the list-* flags. Lists the equivalent information for the local server, rather than the remote server.

--syslog

Send output to syslogd. Log information for rcmirror will be stored in normal system logs.

-s, --show-config

Check the configuration file for errors and display parsed configuration information.

-t, --target= [target]

This flag is used in combinations with the various list commands: --list-channels (-l), --list-products (-p), or --list-components. It narrows the listing of packages to the specified distribution target. For example, use -t redhat-80-i386 to list only channels, products, or components available for Red Hat 8.0 on i386 hardware.

--version, -v

Show version and exit.

FILES

/etc/ximian/rcmirror.conf
The default configuration file, which must be created by hand. A step-by-step guide to creating a rcmirror.conf file is included in the Red Carpet Enterprise online help. The configuration file format is the same as GNOME applications, and is similar to that of Windows INI files: each section is defined in square brackets, and the # (pound) character at the beginning of a line designates that line as a comment. Sections contain one or more tokens, set to a given value with the "=" character, like so: token=value

You will need a different rcmirror.conf file for each remote server you mirror. Also, each operating system mirrored from RHN needs its own rcmirror.conf file. See the OPTIONS section for information about using alternate configuration files, and the EXAMPLES section for example configuration files.

There are several different sections in the rcmirror.conf file. Not all are required.

[rcmirror]

There can be only one [rcmirror] section per configuration file. There is only one token in the section: cachedir.

The cachedir token is the path to a directory where you wish to cache files that have been downloaded but not yet added to a Red Carpet Enterprise channel. This directory must exist, and it must be writable by the user that is running rcmirror.

If the [rcmirror] section is absent or "cachedir" is not set, rcmirror uses a temporary directory in /var/tmp for all downloaded files. That directory is completely removed on exit, regardless of the success of the rcmirror run.

If cachedir is set, its contents will only be removed on the success of the mirroring run. Anything that is already in that directory will not be re-downloaded on the next mirroring run.

Note that this behavior is only relevant when mirroring fails - in the all cases, rcmirror only downloads files that are missing from your local server. If mirroring fails without this behavior, it will download some of the missing packages a second time.

[remote]

There can be only one [remote] section per configuration file. The section must have one base and may also have the tokens proxy, user and password. The type and systemid tokens are optional.

type:

Mirroring from Ximian Red Carpet Express or Enterprise: You do not need to set this token.

From Red Hat Network: Set the value to rhn. If you wish to mirror anything other than the operating system running on your Red Carpet Enterprise server, you must also set the systemid token.

From Red Carpet basic servers: Set the value to basic. You will also need to set base but not user or password.

From YaST: Set the value to yast. rcmirror will detect the type of YaST server and log in, if appropriate.

systemid

This token is used only for RHN mirroring. Its value is the path to the systemid file you wish rcmirror to present to a Red Hat Network server. You should take this file from a Red Hat system which has registered with RHN. Each systemid file will give you access to downloads only for one operating system. You can find this file at /etc/sysconfig/rhn/systemid on any registered RHN client. Note that the proxy settings in rcmirror.conf do not work with RHN. If you use a proxy to access RHN, you must set the proxy with up2date or edit the systemid file, changing the value of "httpProxy" to your proxy and port, and the value of "enableProxy" to 1.

proxy

If you use an HTTP proxy, set the proxy token to that server's name and port. For example, this line might be proxy=http://proxy:3182, or for an authenticated proxy, http://user:password@proxy:3182

base

The base token is the path to the remote server you wish to mirror from. In nearly all cases, this will be the URL for one of the Red Carpet Express servers managed by Ximian, and will use the https:// protocol. For standard YaST servers, set this value to a YaST mirror (you can find a list of mirrors at http://www.suse.de/en/private/download/ftp/int_mirrors.html). If you are using the SuSE Maintenance Web (authenticated YaST updates for SuSE enterprise products), set the value to your SuSE update server. In some cases, usually in development or testing, base may be a path to a file, or an http URL.

user and password

Mirroring from SuSE Maintenance Web: rcmirror can read the user and password values from the /etc/sysconfig/onlineupdate file generated by YaST. If you have not run and registered YaST Online Update on your Red Carpet Enterprise server, set the user token to your SuSE product registration code, and password to the password you set when registering the product. The public YaST service does not require authentication.

Mirroring from Ximian Red Carpet: if you run rcmirror as root, you do not need the user and password tokens, because their data can be read from the files /etc/ximian/mcookie (for the user token) and /etc/ximian/partnernet (for the password token). If you are not running as root, then you must set them. If you have ever used rug or rcd on this system, the files will already exist. However, you must make sure that the identity they represent is permitted to access the channels you wish to mirror, as follows:

1. Your Ximian sales or support representative will give you a valid activation key.

2. If you have not done so already, point your local rcd to the Red Carpet Express server: rug service-add https://update.novell.com/data . To apply ZENworks Linux Management 6.6.2 Hot Patches, see TID 3998128 at Novell Support Web site .

3. Activate the system. If you have multiple services, use the -s [service] flag to specify the service. Use this command: rug activate -s [service] [key] [email@address]

4. If you wish, remove the Red Carpet Express server from your rcd service list, using the rug service-delete command.

You may also substitute the mcookie and partnernet values from any other system that has the appropriate activation and group membership. See the Red Carpet Enterprise online help for additional information about the mcookie and partnernet files.

Mirroring from RHN: Neither user nor password are required when mirroring from RHN.

[local]

The [local] section may have the following tokens: type, user, password, rcmanuser and rcmanpassword. In some cases you may need to set a proxy or base token. Like [remote], the [local] section can occur only once per file.

Note that in rcmirror 1.4.1 and later you will not need host, base, user, or password tokens for access to your local server.

The tokens are as follows:

type indicates the type of server. If your local server is a Ximian Red Carpet Enterprise server, you do not need to set this value. If you are mirroring to a plain directory of files, set the value to static. If you set type to static, you must add a base token pointing to the directory. The directory must exist before you mirror files into it.

The rcmanuser and rcmanpassword tokens are used to access the rcman command on the local system. They should be the login and password for an RCE administrator with permission to alter the relevant channels. You can and should use an md5 hash instead of the actual password. To get an md5 hash, use the command: echo -n "password" |md5sum.

If you use an HTTP proxy, set the proxy token to that server's name and port. For example: proxy=http://proxy.location.corp.com:3182

[channel]

The [channel] section describes a single remote channel that is to be mirrored. There may be multiple channel sections per file. Each [channel] section must have a name token and may have the optional tokens localname, target, excludetarget, package, and excludepackage.

The name token specifies the channel you will be mirroring from the server. For example, "ximian-gnome", "redhat-73-i386", and "openoffice" are all channel names.

Set the localname token if you want to give the channel a different name on your server.

The optional target token limits the mirroring to the specified distribution target. This is matched with a shell-like globbing function, so you can specify "redhat-73-*" to get Red Hat Linux 7.3 for all supported architectures, or "redhat-*" for all versions of Red Hat Linux. You can specify multiple target tags in one [channel] section. Any target matched by any of the "target" tags will be marked as eligible for mirroring. If no target tag is specified, all supported targets will be mirrored.

The optional excludetarget token excludes a target from the list to be mirrored. This is matched with a shell-like globbing function, so you can specify "redhat-73-*" to exclude Red Hat Linux 7.3 for all supported architectures. You can specify multiple excludetarget tags in one [channel] section. All target exclusions are performed after "target" tags have been processed.

The optional package token limits the mirroring to a specified set of package names. Semantics are the same as with the target token. Globbing is allowed, and multiple package tags will result in all matching packages being mirrored.

The optional excludepackage token excludes a package from the list to be mirrored. Globbing is allowed, as are multiple excludepackage tags. All package exclusions are performed after package tags have been processed.

[product]

The [product] section allows you to mirror specific sets of software from Ximian. It was designed to provide an easy method of installing Ximian Desktop or Ximian Evolution on a large number of systems. Each "product" consists of a set of "components," each of which represents a set of packages. Components are roughly analogous to the "task-" packages from Debian.

As in other rcmirror operations, the [product] section causes rcmirror to fetch software from Ximian servers and add it to the local Red Carpet Enterprise server. The existence of the [product] section also prompts mirrors XML files used by the Ximian installer, so that it is possible to run the installer against the local Red Carpet Enterprise server rather than Ximian's servers or a mirror (use the INSTALLER_RCX_MIRROR environment variable or choose your Red Carpet Enterprise server as a mirror).

rcmirror will also create a package set for each component of the product mirrored, containing the individual packages for the component. The naming scheme for the package sets created in this manner is "product-component-pkgset." For example, when mirroring the "ximian-evolution" product, the package set ximian-evolution-pilot-pkgset is created on the Red Carpet Enterprise server, containing a set of PalmOS synchronization packages. The package sets make it more convenient to install the large bundles of software.

A [product] section has the following token and value pairs:

name=productname: The name of the product. You can find the list of available products with the rcmirror --list-products command, and the rcmirror --list-components [productname] to list the available components. As of this release, the products available are ximian-evolution and ximian-desktop-2.

excludetarget and target: These two pairs are used as in the [channel] section above. Be sure to use at least one of these, or rcmirror will pull in the entire distribution, along with the product, for each product you mirror. Note also that the product feature does not work with the "localname" feature: if you mirror a distribution and given it a local name that differs from the name on the remote server, rcmirror will download a second copy of the distribution, just for the product.

EXAMPLES

On SuSE systems, there are additional example configuration files in /usr/share/doc/packages/rcmirror/. On Red Hat systems, you can find those files in /usr/share/doc/rcmirror/.

This program is normally run from cron or another scheduling service. To run this program, type: rcmirror

This example configuration file mirrors the ximian-evolution channel from the basic Red Carpet service, and places them in a directory:

[remote]
type=basic
base=http://red-carpet.ximian.com/

[local]
type=static
base=/tmp/rcmirror-tmp

[channel]
name=ximian-evolution

This example configuration file mirrors the Ximian Desktop 2 channel for all platforms from the Ximian Red Carpet Express server:

[remote]
base=https://update.novell.com/data
user=abcdef123456789
password=abcdef123456789

[local]
rcmanuser=my-username@company.com
rcmanpassword=my-password@company.com

[channel]
name=ximian-desktop-2

This is the [remote] section you would use to mirror from a SuSE Maintenance Web authenticated YaST server:

[remote]
type=yast
base=http://sdb.suse.de/download
user=57396623618473
password=a8feEfa3

This is the [remote] section you would use to mirror Red Hat Advanced Workstation from the Red Hat Network, when running rcmirror on a system other than Red Hat Advanced Workstation.

[remote]
type=rhn
systemid=/etc/ximian/systemid.rhaw

Add the following [product] section to fetch Ximian Evolution for Red Hat 8.0:

[product]
name=ximian-evolution
target=redhat-80-i386

AUTHORS

Copyright 2002-2005, Novell, Inc. All rights reserved. http://www.novell.com  

SEE ALSO

rug(1) rcd(8), rcd.conf(5), rcman(1), rcreports(1), rce-dump(1), rce-init(1) rce-restore(1), rce-getchannels(1)

Index

NAME

SYNTAX

DESCRIPTION

OPTIONS

FILES

EXAMPLES

AUTHORS

SEE ALSO