[wpkg-users] Just running one package at each run

[Rainer Meier]

Hi Simon,

simplesi wrote:
> 
> Kevin Keane-2 wrote:
>> The first request should be fairly easy to do: just add only one
>> application at a time to your profiles. 
> 
> My main issues are machines that for one reason or another haven't run WPKG
> each day - e.g wireless machines that have failed to connect to the wireless
> since the last time I've been in :(.
> 
> Also, teacher laptops that only come into the school once in a while.

But exactly for this use-case it would be extremely bad to update/synchronize
only one piece of software. Since these users are likely to run pretty outdated
software when they connect after a long period of offline work they are likely
to require updating several packages. Since these users will likely not reboot
the machine x times during their stay on the network they will never get all
software updated and therefore they will miss a lot of updates.

So it's very likely that such users which just sporadically connect to the
network will run outdated software.


> Some tasks I have set to run always (wallpaper resetters etc) so I'd still
> need them to work but maybe I could have 2 separate WPKG setups and just do
> something with the second one - I'll have to think about it :)

This slightly contradicts to the first request. If you have packages which will
run on every WPKG run you will end up executing the first one only and then WPKG
would stop doing the remaining packages. This will effectively prevent WPKG from
doing more than the first package which is set to "always" run.



> I did think about doing something like this but it would mean that each host
> would have to have its own profile but that's probably the way to go so I
> might try that out at my smallest site :)


Pretty simple idea and it also allows you to run the "always" tasks in addition.
This gives you full control on the packages updated on each single node. Just
note that one thing you cannot influence: If you update multiple packages which
are assigned to a host, then WPKG will still perform all updates at next run. So
the "add one after the other by adding only a single package to the profile
assigned to the host" approach will work as expected for "new" packages but
might still apply multiple updates on next run.

br,
Rainer