Software Distributor Administration Guide HP-UX 11i v1, 11i v2, and 11i v3 (5900-2561, March 2013)

Network depots offers these advantages over installing directly from media:
• Several users can pull software down to their systems (over the network) without having to
transport media to each user.
• Installation from a network server is faster than from media.
• You can combine different software products from multiple media or network servers into a
single depot.
4.1.1.1 Types of Depots
A depot usually exists as a directory location. This software is in a hierarchy of subdirectories and
filesets organized according to a specific media format. A host may contain several depots. For
example, a software distribution server on your network might contain a depot of application
software, a depot of patch software, and a depot of OS software.There are two types of depots:
directory and tape.
4.1.1.1.1 Directory Depot
• A directory depot consists of software stored under a special SD-UX-managed directory on
your file system, usually /var/spool/sw.
• A directory depot can be writable or read-only.
• When you use the SD-UX commands to refer to a directory depot, you need only to refer to
the depot’s top-most directory. In a CD-ROM depot, this directory would be the CD-ROM
mount point, such as /cdrom/mydepot.
4.1.1.1.2 Tape Depot
• Tape (serial) depots offer advantages when you must copy or install software over slow or
unreliable network connections, including the web. (First copy the depot to a local host, then
install from the local depot.)
• Software in a tape depot is formatted as a tar archive.
• Depots for actual cartridge, DAT and 9-track tape are referred to by the path to the tape
drive’s device file. For example: /dev/rmt/0m.
• You cannot modify or verify tape depots.
• You can create a tape depot only with the swpackage command. You cannot use swcopy
to copy software directly to a tape. See Chapter 10: “Creating Software Packages ” (page 171)
for more information on swpackage.
• Software in a tape depot must first be transferred to a directory depot before it can be accessed
by other hosts on the network.
• A tape depot can be accessed by only one command at a time.
4.1.1.2 Depot Registration
To make the software in a depot available for use by SD-UX commands across a network, you
must register the depot. You can also unregister a depot if you do not want it to be available. See
“Registering and Unregistering Depots (swreg) ” (page 95) for more information.
4.2 Copying Software Depots
The swcopy command copies software between depots. Software that is copied into a depot cannot
be used directly; it is placed there only to act as a source for installation and other SD-UX operations.
86 Managing Software Depots