Depot Management Commands and Concepts

The following commands will help you perform depot management tasks:

Table 4-2 Commands for Depot Management

Depot Task	Command(s)	More Information/Examples
Copy	swcopy	“Copying Software Depots” “Combining Patch Depots”
Create	swcopy, swpackage	Chapter 10: “Creating Software Packages ” “Creating a Tape Depot for Distribution”
List	swlist -d	“Listing Registered Depots” “Listing the Contents of a Depot (swlist -d) ”
Register	swreg	“Registering and Unregistering Depots (swreg) ”
Remove	swremove -d	“Removing Software from Depots” “Removing a Depot”
Unregister	swreg -u	“Registering and Unregistering Depots (swreg) ”
Verify	swverify -d	“Verifying a Depot (swverify -d) ”
Additional tasks		“Additional Depot Management Tasks and Examples”

Depot Concepts

A depot is a special type of directory formatted for use by SD-UX commands, and used to contain software products. You can create a depot by using swcopy to copy software directly from physical media or by using swpackage to make a software package containing the depot.

When a depot resides on a networked system, that system can act as a source for software: other systems on the network can install software products from that server instead of installing them each time from media.

Network depots offers these advantages over installing directly from media:

Several users can pull software down to their systems (over the network) without having to transport media to each user.
Installation from a network server is faster than from media.
You can combine different software products from multiple media or network servers into a single depot.

Types of Depots

A depot usually exists as a directory location. This software is in a hierarchy of subdirectories and filesets organized according to a specific media format. A host may contain several depots. For example, a software distribution server on your network might contain a depot of application software, a depot of patch software, and a depot of OS software.There are two types of depots: directory and tape.

Directory Depot

A directory depot consists of software stored under a special SD-UX-managed directory on your file system, usually /var/spool/sw.
A directory depot can be writable or read-only.
When you use the SD-UX commands to refer to a directory depot, you need only to refer to the depot’s top-most directory. In a CD-ROM depot, this directory would be the CD-ROM mount point, such as /cdrom/mydepot.

Tape Depot

Tape (serial) depots offer advantages when you must copy or install software over slow or unreliable network connections, including the web. (First copy the depot to a local host, then install from the local depot.)
Software in a tape depot is formatted as a tar archive.
Depots for actual cartridge, DAT and 9-track tape are referred to by the path to the tape drive’s device file. For example: /dev/rmt/0m.
You cannot modify or verify tape depots.
You can create a tape depot only with the swpackage command. You cannot use swcopy to copy software directly to a tape. See Chapter 10: “Creating Software Packages ” for more information on swpackage.
Software in a tape depot must first be transferred to a directory depot before it can be accessed by other hosts on the network.
A tape depot can be accessed by only one command at a time.

Depot Registration

To make the software in a depot available for use by SD-UX commands across a network, you must register the depot. You can also unregister a depot if you do not want it to be available. See “Registering and Unregistering Depots (swreg) ” for more information.

Depot Management Commands and Concepts

Technical documentation

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Depot Concepts

Types of Depots

Directory Depot

Tape Depot

Depot Registration