HP-UX System Administrator's Guide: Routine Management Tasks

Location of Software
Software, packaged in SD-format, is stored in a depot. Any system can store one or
more depots. A depot is a repository which holds all the needed pieces for installation
of the software. You create a depot by copying software directly to it (using the
SD-UXswcopy command) from either a tape or CD/DVD or by creating a software
package within it (using the swpackage command). Before you can use the depot you
must register it (using the swreg command). It can then be used as the source for
installation tasks with the swinstall command which is executed on the target
machine.
There are two types of depots:
Directory Depot Software in a directory depot is stored under a normal
directory on your file system (by default /var/spool/sw).
When using the SD-UX commands, refer to a directory depot
via its top most directory. In a CD/DVD depot, the directory
would be the media’s mount point.
Tape Depot Software in a tape depot is formatted as a tar archive. Tape
depots such as cartridge tapes, DAT and 9-track tape are
referred to by the file system path to the tape drive’s device
file.
A tape depot can only be created by usingswpackage and it
cannot be verified or modified with SD-UX commands. You
cannot copy software (using swcopy) directly to a tape; use
swpackage for this operation.
Software in a tape depot may be installed directly on a local
host, but must first be transferred to a directory depot before
it can be “pulled” by other hosts on the network. A tape depot
can be accessed by only one command at a time.
NOTE: If you administer software for systems, you should create separate depots for
each.
SD-UX Tasks
SD-UX commands can be executed from the command line. However, SD-UX provides
a graphical and terminal user interface for the commonly used commands: swinstall,
swcopy, swremove, and on 11.x, swlist -i.
The most common SD-UX tasks are:
• swinstall. See “Adding Software” (page 182)
• swlist. See “Listing Software” (page 184)
• swremove. See “Removing Software” (page 185)
Software Distributor (SD-UX) 181