Software Distributor Administration Guide (March 2009)

If the reinstall_files_use_cksum option is false, then only the size and mtime
are checked. Checking the checksum attribute is more time consuming but more reliable.
The size and mtime checks are very fast.
The user can see which files were actually installed or copied and which were skipped
due to being already up to date by setting the loglevel option to 2.
8.7 Database Checkpointing
The tools perform automatic checkpointing, recording transactions in the SD-UX depot
catalog, or Installed Products Database (IPD) at the fileset level. Additionally,
checkpointing at the file level is supported through attributes stored with the file.
During a swinstall or swcopy operation, all filesets in the current product being
loaded are recorded in the depot catalog or IPD as having a state of transient. After all
filesets in a product complete the copy or install, the state is changed to available or
installed, and the next product is started. At this point, retrying an operation will not
attempt to recopy or reinstall the filesets that are already installed (see “Retry
Command” (page 174)).
NOTE: This behavior requires that either the product or fileset have a revision defined.
The current state and revisions of filesets can be displayed with the command:
swlist [-d] -l fileset -a revision -a state
If there is an error installing a fileset in the product that causes the install to fail (e.g.,
lost connection to the source), all filesets in the product are changed from transient to
corrupt. (All filesets are assumed corrupt since the product level postinstall script has
not been run yet. In actuality, the filesets may be properly installed.)
Independent of a fileset being installed (either properly or in a corrupt state) you can
determine whether any particular file is installed properly with a high degree of certainty
through the file’s size, mtime, and cksum attributes. Through these file attributes,
checkpointing at the file level is approximated (this is described in the previous section).
8.8 Compression
The swinstall and swcopy commands can transfer large amounts of data over the
network from depots to targets. The SD-UX compress_files option can improve
performance by first compressing files that are to be transferred. This can reduce
network usage by approximately 50%; the exact amount of compression depends on
the type of files. Binary files compress less than 50%; text files generally compress more.
Set this option to true only when network bandwidth is clearly restricting total
throughput. If it is not clear that this option will help, compare the throughput of a
few swinstall or swcopy tasks (i.e., with and without compression) before changing
this option value.
8.7 Database Checkpointing 175