Software Distributor (SD-UX) Administration Guide HP-UX 11i v1, 11i v2, and 11i v3 (762797-001, March 2014)

In general, the term target refers to either a host (specifically, the host’s file system) or a depot that
resides on a host. The term source refers to a depot from which software is being installed or copied
(sometimes referred to as a source depot).
For example, a basic install operation with the swinstall command involves installing software
from a source depot to a target location on the host itself. The source depot might be physical
media accessible from the target, or a directory depot on some server on the network. The target
host might be the same host on which the command was invoked (i.e., the local host) or, if remote
operation is enabled, some other host on the network.
A basic copy operation (using the swcopy command) is very similar, except that the target is a
depot on the host, rather than the host itself.
For most operations, controller programs access hosts and depots using an agent called swagent,
which performs the basic software management tasks. The agent is accessed via a daemon called
swagentd. When SD-UX operates on the local host, both controller and agent run on the local
host. For remote operations, the agent runs on a remote host.
Figure 1: “SD-UX Systems”, shows how software can be developed and then packaged into
SD-formatted media, which can either be accessed directly or copied to a depot directory on a
server and accessed via the network.
Figure 1 SD-UX Systems
Software Structure
SD-UX commands work on a hierarchy of software objects that make up the applications or operating
systems components you want to manage.
Software Objects
Bundles Collections of filesets, possibly from several different products, “encapsulated”
for a specific purpose. Bundles can reside in software depots, and SD-UX
commands act on bundles as single entities. All HP-UX OS software is packaged
in bundles. Bundles can consist of groups of filesets or of products. Customer
creation of bundles is not supported.
Products Collections of filesets or (optionally) subproducts and control scripts. The SD-UX
commands maintain a product focus but still allow you to specify subproducts
and filesets.
Different versions of a product can be defined for different platforms and
operating systems, as well as different revisions (releases) of the product itself.
Several different versions could be included on one distribution media or depot.
Subproducts If a product contains several filesets, subproducts can be used to group logically
related filesets.
20 Introduction to Software Distributor