HP-UX 11i Version 2 March 2004 Release Notes

General System Administration
Software Package Builder (SPB)
Chapter 5
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The SPB graphical user interface (GUI) provides a window into the software package
structure, showing attributes that can be set for each package element. SPB dynamically
loads packaging policies and validates software package attributes against these
policies. The SPB command line interface (CLI) can also perform validation of software
package attributes against policies and supports automated edits to the software
package specification.
Whether you are new to packaging or experienced, SPB can help you. Features of SPB
include:
• Create a product specification file (PSF) to organize files into products, filesets, and
optionally, into bundles and subproducts.
• Set attribute values to define the software package characteristics such as revision,
architecture, file permissions, and dependencies.
• Control scripts can further customize how the software is handled when installing or
removing it on the destination system.
• Validate the PSF against packaging policies to ensure successful depot creation with
the swpackage command and subsequent software installation.
• Edit and validate the PSF automatically as part of the nightly build process using
SPB's CLI.
With SPB, developers and administrators can easily package software in SD format,
making management of software with standard SD tools (such as swinstall, swlist,
swremove) possible. For example, SPB makes it easy to put an SD wrapper around open
source software. As a result, software inventory management and system administration
get easier.
Summary of Change
SPB has been updated to version A.01.04 to allow the setting of corequisites and
prerequisites attributes using the OR relationship.
Additionally, functionality has been added to allow SPB to detect ambiguous objects.
Some objects, such as “vendor,” “category,” and “subproducts” use only the value of the
“tag” attribute to determine whether they are unique from each other. However,
“product” and “fileset” objects are differentiated by the combined values of several
attributes, which may include “tag,” “revision,” “architecture,” “location,” and
“vendor_tag.” See swpackage (5) for more information.
Impact
Currently, most customers do not choose to package software in SD format due to its
complexity. SPB should significantly reduce your learning curve and the time required to
package software. By packaging software in SD format, you gain the ability to easily tell
what software is installed on the system, making software management easier.
Compatibility
SPB uses Java 1.4.0 or greater.