Re: pkg_add and remote packages

[Joerg Sonnenberger <joerg%britannica.bec.de@localhost>]

On Fri, Apr 04, 2008 at 01:04:52PM -0400, Johnny C. Lam wrote:
> (1) Modify pkg_add(1) to use libfetch to fetch the remote binary package 
> and store it locally, then install the local binary package.  I'm not sure 
> precisely what advantage using libfetch is over using ftp(1) if that's all 
> that we're doing; could you explain?

I always have to use temporary files to get e.g. remote directory
listenings. One reason to switch to libfetch is to avoid that.
The other reason to make pkg_install itself completely standalone.
I would like to discuss at a later stage if we want to do stream
installation without storing the package in the filesystem at all, but
that is something I want to do after the more important item of inplace
installation is done.

> (2) Modify pkg_add(1) to use libarchive to extract the local binary package 
> directly into ${LOCALBASE} and ${PKG_DBDIR} instead of the staged 
> installation via /var/tmp (as is currently done).

That is the primary goal. The problem for me is that pkg_add has two
slightly different code pathes here:
(1) Local binary package calls pax/tar to extract to /var/tmp
(2) Remote binary package fetches via "get foo | tar xf -" to /var/tmp

I would like to get rid of the second code path first and only deal with
the second part.

> I think that sounds fine, as long as both parts are eventually done. Very 
> often, the trade-off for disk space and bandwidth is biased toward "disk 
> space is cheap", but I find that I usually fetch "remote" packages across 
> my local network and really don't want the extra copies of packages 
> everywhere.

The local copy will normally be deleted after the installation (unless
requested otherwise), so it is "just" temporary disk space.

Joerg