PC Remote Build Server Page

This document explains how to enable a server to support PC Remote Build, how to update this server, and how to add additional packages.

Server Setup

PC-RB can be setup on any sever that has a HTTP server. The steps to enable pc-rb are:

  1. Create an account on the server for the user fileserv. It should live in /home/system/fileserv.
  2. Create the sub-directories pc, lib, bin, site.
  3. Create the following sub-directories off of site:
  4. Create a soft link in the document directory of the WWW server that points to the pc sub directory in fileserv, call it pcrb (the command would be ln -s ~fileserv/pc pcrb).
  5. Ftp the following file from the master server (sup.pps.pgh.pa.us) and place it in the corresponding directory:
  6. From fileserv's account, execute sup ~fileserv/lib/master.sup. (If sup does not exist on the server, you will need to get a copy of it as well.)
  7. Copy over the standard configuration file from ~fileserv/pc/config/standard/sys/standard.cfg to ~fileserv/pc/site/config/sys/.
  8. Copy over the corresponding site configuration file from ~fileserv/pc/config/site/sys/?.cfg to ~fileserv/pc/site/config/sys/.
  9. Create a directory for the site corresponding to the package name located in the site configuration file (?.cfg) in ~fileserv/pc/site/ (i.e. schenley.cfg should have a directory called schenley.10 in ~fileserv/pc/site).
  10. Execute ~fileserv/bin/sup_fileserv.
  11. Put the following commands in cron for fileserv:

    The first one should be run daily at 3:00am, the last should be run once a week, approximately 30-60 minutes after the first one.

If you need to be backwardly compatible with previous versions of pcrb, you will also need to do the following:

Product Design

Directory Hierarchy

The packages of software that make up the fileserv account are stored in sub directories under "pc" based on there classifier of:

Operating System Software:os
Free Software:free
Commercial Software:comm
PC Remote Build Software:sys
Configuration Files for pc-rb: config
Site Specific Files: site
Links to all packages:base

The packages are stored under their corresponding directory. These are named using a standardized format of package_name.version_#. The version number is created by removing all punctuation from the real version number. For example, MSWord 2.01 becomes msword.201 and MSDOS 6.22 would be msdos.622. Within the directory itself, the software must be arranged in a directory structure that mimics the directory structure on the client computer.

Configuration

Package Selection & Distribution

Packages are initially brought over to the server via sup and a master fileserv server. The base distribution master.sup which is brought over initially, contains the basic software to run Windows For Workgroups and several free Internet programs (e.g. telnet, ftp, www browser). A site can choose to request additional packages by editing the site.sup file, located in ~fileserv/lib, to include different collections. A list of all current available collections is located in ~fileserv/lib/collections.txt. The script sup_from_info will use both master.sup (which should never be change), to bring over the standard distribution, and site.sup to bring over site specific collections. Further help can be found in the sup man page.

Glossary

Package
A package is one software application or a part of a software application that can be installed on a Intel X86 computer (386, 486, Pentium). The exception is a Sup Package.
Package, Sup
A sup package is a group of packages that are grouped under one name, in the case of pc-rb, it is derived from the location that the packages will exist on the server (i.e. ~fileserv/pc/free)
 

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Version 1.2:July 16, 1996:CJR