[wpkg-users] [Bug 177] Local install flag

[bugzilla-daemon at bugzilla.wpkg.org]

http://bugzilla.wpkg.org/show_bug.cgi?id=177


Rainer Meier <r.meier at wpkg.org> changed:

           What    |Removed                     |Added
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             Status|NEW                         |ASSIGNED




--- Comment #1 from Rainer Meier <r.meier at wpkg.org>  2009-10-05 11:10:11 ---
Hi Falko

Actually I am planning a feature like this for WPKG 1.2 release (I've got to
find some time to continue development).

However my idea of "how" was slightly different. It's very unlikely intended by
administrators to allow users to work with "outdated" software. So I thought
about allowing users to install packages manually (as long as they got
permissions to install software locally) and these packages are added to
wpkg.xml and starting from then regarded as a part of the profile. This would
allow users with appropriate permissions to "extend" their profile and add
packages from the repository provided while the software they add will be
automatically updated.
Adding an application via WPKG and having it installed as a "one shot"
installation does not require WPKG - users could simply install the application
manually without WPKG knowing about it.

However this change also includes some more changes in existing algorithms. For
example if the administrator then decides to add a package to the profile
assigned to the node which has been manually added by the user before - so the
package should "transfer" from a user-added package to a profile-managed
package.

I don't think a switch like "/local" and/or "/persistent" is required in this
case since every package added by the user will be maintained from this point
in time by WPKG. So if a user adds a package manually it will also be upgraded
if the administrator adds a new version

I think another configuration parameter to reset client configurations (and a
command-line switch) would be required. This would allow administrators to
re-enforce the installation of only the packages in the profile - ie. all
"local" packages are removed. 

Unfortunately this drives WPKG into a direction which requires to include much
more mechanisms. Soon we would have requests to allow/disallow "local" packages
on profile level (on some hosts they are allowed, on some they are not). I am
not sure this makes sense to manage in WPKG because it would require users to
have software-installation privileges for WPKG and no privileges for the user
to install software manuelly in order to make any sense (else users could
anyway install the software without invoking WPKG).


Finally I can say that this is certainly more demanding to implement than it
might look at the beginning and it's certainly not a feature/change to be
implemented within the current stable release. However we keep this report open
and queue it as an enhancement for future releases.

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