This post does make the assumption that the end user is familiar with making a symlink, starting a service, opening ports on a router (if necessary) ect.
If you have any questions, feel free to either PM me or drop a reply, I will be more than happy to assist in any way possible.
I keep an extra computer tucked away in a closet, and one of the many functions of this spare machine is to maintain and serve up
(via anonymous ftp) a PCLOS repository. This step by step guide will explain how I configured my setup, your mileage may differ.
I am not going to get in to hardware configuration. Basically you will need an Internet capable system that can ideally run 24/7
(this isn't a requirement, but it helps).
1) Plan out the location of your repository and make sure you have enough free disk space.
Since I have most of my disk allocated to /home I put my repository in /home/ftp/pub/linux
If all you want are the standard repository sections, (main extra nonfree kde gnome) then you will need around 15g of free disk space.
If you want to add SRPM (source rpms) then you should have between 30-40g free.
2) Choose a repository close to your geographical location.
This is the longest part of the setup. Downloading the initial repository. This line will differ depending on the repository you download from.
rsync -aP --no-motd --stats --exclude=*testing --exclude=*kde4 --exclude=SRPM* spout.ussg.indiana.edu::pclinuxos/pclinuxos /apt/pclinuxos/2007/ /home/ftp/pub/linux
I personally like running the initial rsync from an interactive session so I can monitor its progress and interrupt it if necessary.
Once this part is finished, I wrote the following script and put it in /usr/local/bin then created a link to it in /etc/cron.daily to keep the repository updated daily and maintain a detailed log of file transfers.
#!/bin/bash
#
#--------------[ To Do List ]--------------
#--
#--
#--
#--
#--
#----------------------------------------------------------
# Function to perform some housekeeping before exiting.
#----------------------------------------------------------
function cleanup {
#
# Did we create a temporary file?
if [ -f $TMPFILE ]; then
# YES, then delete it before we exit.
rm $TMPFILE
fi
# Terminate the script with a return code of 0 (normal termination) or any other number (abnormal termination).
exit $RETVAL
}
# name the file we are going to log our output to.
LOGFILE="/home/ftp/pub/linux/pclinuxos/rsync.log"
# Create a temporary file.
TMPFILE=`mktemp -t rsync.XXXXXXXXXX`
# Was the temporary file created without errors?
if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then
# NO, print a message to our log file then terminate.
printf "\n********** `date +'[%A %b %d %Y] - [%r]'` **********\n" >> $LOGFILE
printf "Repository update FAILED: Unable to create temporary file\n" >> $LOGFILE
RETVAL=1
cleanup
fi
# Set our file counter to 0
COUNT=0
# Call rsync to sync our repository with spout.ussg.indiana.edu.
# -a: This is equivalent to -rlptgoD. It is a quick way of saying you want recursion and want to preserve almost everything.
# -P: Show progress. This isn't very useful in a non-interactive session, but its nice when we want to sync interactively.
# --no-motd: Most servers have an motd, we don't need to see it so have rsync ignore it.
# --stats: Give us some extra file transfer stats. Good during an interactive session.
# --exclude=<pattern>: Ignore directories matching <pattern>. In this case, testing, kde4 and SRPM (source rpms).
# --log-file=: Log output to the temporary file we created above.
rsync -aP --no-motd --stats --exclude=*testing --exclude=*kde4 --exclude=SRPM* --log-file=$TMPFILE spout.ussg.indiana.edu::pclinuxos/pclinuxos/apt/pclinuxos/2007/ /home/ftp/pub/linux 2>/dev/null
# get the return value from rsync and assign it to RETVAL for later use.
RETVAL=$?
# Did rsync terminate without errors?
if [[ $RETVAL -ne 0 ]]; then
# NO, there was a problem with rsync. Write a FAILED notice to our log file, then exit.
printf "\n********** `date +'[%A %b %d %Y] - [%r]'` **********\n" >> $LOGFILE
case $RETVAL in
1) REASON="Syntax or usage error";;
2) REASON="Protocol incompatibility";;
3) REASON="Errors selecting input/output files, dirs";;
4) REASON="Requested action not supported";;
5) REASON="Error starting client-server protocol";;
6) REASON="Daemon unable to append to log-file";;
10) REASON="Error in socket I/O";;
11) REASON="Error in file I/O";;
12) REASON="Error in rsync protocol data stream";;
13) REASON="Errors with program diagnostics";;
14) REASON="Error in IPC code";;
20) REASON="Received SIGUSR1 or SIGINT";;
21) REASON="Some error returned by waitpid()";;
22) REASON="Error allocating core memory buffers";;
23) REASON="Partial transfer due to error";;
24) REASON="Partial transfer due to vanished source files";;
25) REASON="The --max-delete limit stopped deletions";;
30) REASON="Timeout in data send/receive";;
35) REASON="Timeout waiting for daemon connection";;
*) REASON="Undefined error";;
esac
printf "Repository update FAILED with error code $RETVAL: $REASON\n" >> $LOGFILE
RETVAL=2
cleanup
else
# YES, rsync finished without errors.
# get the number of package files transferred.
TRANSFERRED=`cat $TMPFILE | grep -c .rpm`
# Were any files transferred durning this update?
if [ $TRANSFERRED -gt "0" ]; then
# YES, we had some files transferred.
# Add a note to the logfile detailing the current time and the number of files transferred.
printf "\n********** `date +'[%A %b %d %Y] - [%r]'` **********\n" >> $LOGFILE
printf "Repository update SUCEEDED with $TRANSFERRED files transferred.\n" >> $LOGFILE
printf "Number\tSection\t\tFilename\n" >> $LOGFILE
echo "-------------------------------------------" >> $LOGFILE
else
# NO, there were no files transferred durning this update.
# No need to add a note to the log file.
# Call the cleanup function which will terminate this script after some housekeeping.
RETVAL=0
cleanup
fi
# Since we had some files transferred, we will parse our temp file line by line to get the filenames.
cat $TMPFILE | while read line
do
# Does this line have .rpm in it (denoting a package file)
FILE=`echo $line | grep .rpm`
if [ ! -z "$FILE" ]; then
# YES, lets increment our counter by 1 then write that number along with the section and filename transferred to our log file.
COUNT=$(($COUNT+1))
FILE=`echo $FILE | awk '{ print $NF }'`
SECTION=`echo $FILE | cut -d'/' -f3`
FILENAME=`basename $FILE`
printf " $COUNT:\t$SECTION\t$FILENAME\n" >> $LOGFILE
fi
done
fi
RETVAL=0
cleanup
3) Now that I had the repository downloaded and ready to go, I needed to set up an ftp server to make the files available to all of my machines.
4) I started by installing vsftpd from the repositories.
5) After doing some reading on the vsftpd configuration file, I opened /etc/vsftpd/vsftpd.conf and added:
# Allow anonymous FTP? (Beware - allowed by default if you comment this out).
# I want a read only anonymous ftp.
anonymous_enable=YES
anon_root=/home/ftp
anon_upload_enable=NO
anon_mkdir_write_enable=NO
anon_other_write_enable=NO
anon_world_readable_only=YES
cmds_allowed=PASV,PWD,LIST,TYPE,MKD,CWD,EXIT,QUIT,HELP,RETR
pasv_min_port=10450
pasv_max_port=10500
pam_service_name=vsftpd
userlist_enable=YES
tcp_wrappers=YES
use_localtime=YES
6) I set vsftpd to start when the computer is turned on.
7) I opened synaptic on my other machines and went to "settings" -> "repositories", unchecked the default repository then clicked "New".
URI: 192.168.1.105/pub/linux
Distribution: pclinuxos/2007
sections: main extra nonfree kde gnome
Click "Ok", then "Reload". You should now have your very own PCLinuxOS repository that keeps itself up to date.
*NOTE. 192.168.1.105 is the IP address I manually assigned to my spare machine.
