HP-UX 11i Version 2 Release Notes (October 2003)

General System Administration
Software Package Builder (SPB)
Chapter 4
102
Performance
Running SD in Itanium native improves performance.
Documentation
The Software Distributor Administration Guide has been updated to reflect all changes
and can be found at http://www.docs.hp.com/.
Obsolescence
Not applicable.
Software Package Builder (SPB)
Software Package Builder (SPB) provides a visual method to create and edit software
packages using the HP-UX Software Distributor (SD) package format. Once software is
packaged, it can easily be transferred to a distribution medium, mass produced, and
installed by administrators.
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.