Making Packages Remotely Installable

All packages must be installable remotely. Installable remotely means you do not assume the administrator installing your package is installing to the root (/) file system of the system running the pkgadd command. If, in one of your procedure scripts, you need to get to the /etc/vfstab file of the target system, you need to use the PKG_INSTALL_ROOT environment variable. In other words, the path name /etc/vfstab will get you to the /etc/vfstab file of the system running the pkgadd command, but the administrator may be installing to a client at /export/root/client3. The path ${PKG_INSTALL_ROOT}/etc/vfstab is guaranteed to get you to the target file system.

Example – Installing to a Client System

In this example, the SUNWstuf package is installed to client3, which is configured with /opt in its root (/) file system. One other version of this package is already installed on client3, and the base directory is set to basedir=/opt/$PKGINST from an administration file, thisadmin. (For more information on administration files, see The Administrative Defaults File.) The pkgadd command executed on the server is:

# pkgadd -a thisadmin -R /export/root/client3 SUNWstuf

The table below lists the environment variables and their values that are passed to the procedure scripts.

Table 6-1 Values Passed to Procedure Scripts

Example – Installing to a Server or Standalone System

To install to the server or a standalone system under the same circumstances as the previous example, the command is:

# pkgadd -a thisadmin SUNWstuf

The table below lists the environment variables and their values that are passed to the procedure scripts.

Table 6-2 Values Passed to Procedure Scripts

Example – Mounting Shared File Systems

Assume that the SUNWstuf package creates and shares a file system on the server at /export/SUNWstuf/share. When the package is installed to the client systems, their /etc/vfstab files need to be updated to mount this shared file system. This is a situation where you can use the CLIENT_BASEDIR variable.

The entry on the client needs to present the mount point with reference to the client's file system. This line should be constructed correctly whether the installation is from the server or from the client. Assume that the server's system name is $SERVER. You can go to $PKG_INSTALL_ROOT/etc/vfstab and, using the sed or awk commands, construct the following line for the client's /etc/vfstab file.

$SERVER:/export/SUNWstuf/share - $CLIENT_BASEDIR/usr nfs - yes ro

For example, for the server universe and the client system client9, the line in the client system's /etc/vfstab file would look like:

universe:/export/SUNWstuf/share - /opt/SUNWstuf.2/usr nfs - yes ro

Using these parameters correctly, the entry always mounts the client's file system, whether it is being constructed locally or from the server.