Re: new sysinstall

[Robert Garrett <rg70@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Matthew Dillon wrote:

>     What I would like to see is a program which 'deconstructs' a build. 
>     So, for example, you would build and customize a machine as you see
>     fit and then run the program to generate a procedure which will
>     duplicate the system.
> 
>     The program would figure out which portions of the build correspond to
>     base system, ports, release, whatever (by using MD5 checksums), and
>     would then generate a configuration file which deals with those parts
>     of the system, and the same program would also generate a script, tar
>     file, and/or patch set (or whatever) containing modifications relative
>     to that base.
> 
>     With these two pieces of information in hand it would be fairly easy
>     to
>     create sophisticated updating and upgrading utilities.  In particular
>     I want to be able to deconstruct a machine into its component pieces
>     even in the case where the database being used to manage the packages
>     becomes corrupt or gets out of sync.  Kind of a 'tell me exactly where
>     this came from' utility.
> 
>     % whomade /bin/ls
>     /bin/ls from RELENG_4 as of <date>
> 
>     % whomade -diff /etc/passwd
>     /etc/passwd from RELENG_4 as of <date> with modifications
>     <patch>
> 
>     And so forth.  If whatever packaging system we come up with is not
>     capable of supporting the above then we haven't come up with the right
>     packaging system.
> 
> -Matt
> Matthew Dillon
> <dillon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Interesting Idea, one that shouldn't be to difficult to make work.
though it could take a while to define a way to build a machine. 
I am reffering to once you start the command. 

Rob