Hi there

I would like to keep a local copy of the slackware current folder on my server.
The reason for this is i have quite a few machines to keep updated (15) and would also like to have my own mirror for some friends to use.

I am just not sure the best way to do it.

My theory goes like this:

1. Copy all the packages from my Slackware 11 cd (when it arrives) to /mnt/server
2. then use rsync to compare it to a mirror local to me, and update as required

The problem is im unsure of how to do the rsync bit, and after reading the man page im still non the wiser!

I am just doing a test run at the mo, so i have copied the files from my 10.2 cd under /mnt/server but im not sure what commands to pass to rsync.

I do not want to do it as a cron job, as i will be updating according to the changelog and when network traffic is light.

the mirror i would like to use is ftp.mirror.ac.uk

Thanks in advance

Copying the files from your cd to some directory would be a good idea as it would reduce the amount of download time. Just make sure it has the same directory structure as the mirror.

For that mirror the command would be:

rsync -avu --delete ftp.mirror.ac.uk::ftp.slackware.org/slackware-current /nnn/

replace nnn with the directory you copied the contents of the cd to.

The --delete flag will remove the old files from your side that have been updated


Edit: added the -u flag

Thank you for the quick reply, however when i try it i get this error

so im still stuck!

EDIT: it needs to be ftp.slackware.com, not .org!!!

Sorry about that, I guess I read through their module list a little too quickly.

see also

http://www.slackware.com/~alien/tools/rsync_current.sh

Here's my rsync script. It excludes certain things as you can see. kde kdei pasture and source. Slackware.com is not a very fast mirror, so using something else like osuosl is much quicker.

#!/bin/sh
#
rsync -rlptD -z -v \
--exclude pasture --exclude slackware/kde --exclude slackware/kdei \
--exclude source \
--delete --delete-excluded \
rsync.osuosl.org::slackware/slackware-current/ \
/home/simon/rsync/slackware-current/

Do you mean Slackware 12 here? Basing your mirror off of a Slack 11 CD would work, but you really won't save yourself that much bandwidth, almost everything was changed from Slackware 11 to 12.

Read the date of the first post. digitalboy74 dredged up an old post. He meant Slackware 11...

Ah, so he did.

Thank you simcox1, i think it's great. Based on your script i'm trying to make my own, i'm interested in being able to sync from slackware-current/source, is there a way to avoid downloading the sources? (i'd only like to get: slack-desc, SlackBuilds and patches, etc, but not the sources for compiling the programs) Here's my "slack-sync.sh"
All tips are welcome, thanks!
Edit: Seems: --exclude=*.tar.bz2 \ worked. fixes welcomed.

Nice, a ports-like system

Okay, I have a dumb doubt here. Once you have a local mirror of -current, how often do you people do an upgradepkg */*tgz? Once a month? Once a release?
I found a nice link for upgrading between releases (I've only been doing reinstalls since 10.2), and it does look a little tedious.
So do people usually upgrade only critical packages and leave the rest for later?

It makes little sense to have a local mirror of Slackware-current and then not use it. It wastes your bandwidth.
If you do follow the development in -current, the best thing is to check the ChangeLog.txt daily (or at least weekly) and apply the changes listed in the ChangeLog.
This can mean: upgrade packages, remove packages, change configuration files, etc... it all depends. Usually, a snapshot of slackware-current at any given day will either contain bugs (that you may or may not have encountered) or misses functionality that keep the tree from being promoted to a "stable" release. All in all, you should not stick for too long with a snapshot of slackware-current installed on your system.

Eric

That's very good info, thanks. I think I'll lurk around at the Changelogs page and stick with upgrading packages I'm familiar with (or seem important) to start with.

It also makes little sense to pick individual packages for upgrade... either you keep current with the development of Slackware (which means act on every update in the ChangeLog) or stick with a stable release of Slackware (and keep that one up[-to-date by following the bugfixes that get added to the /patches directory over time... there is a slackware-security mailing list you can subscribe to if you want to be kept informed of updates).

If you need newer versions of individual packages for your Slackware machine but don't want to be on the bleeding edge, it may be better to download the sources including the SlackBuild script and build yourself a package. That way, you can be certain the package works for your system.

Eric

Very well, I think your second recommendation suits me better (stick with stable and upgrade just the security patches). I've subscribed to slackware-security as well now, thanks again for the advice.