autoslackpkg - a way to automate slackpkg

Lockywolf · 11-27-2019, 07:17 PM

Now do you parse lilo.conf?

Chuck56 · 11-27-2019, 08:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lockywolf

Now do you parse lilo.conf?

It's part of the customization of lilo.conf shown in the "autoslackpkg -h lilo" help screen.

When a new kernel is installed, lilo.conf is appended with lines that contain the new release number. sed is used to change the default kernel line.

When an old kernel is removed, sed is used to delete the old release lines and another sed changes the default kernel line.

This is the required lilo.conf format for the bootable partition section...

Code:

# Linux bootable partition config begins
default=Gen4.4.201-smp
image=/boot/vmlinuz-generic-smp-4.4.199-smp
  initrd=/boot/initrd-4.4.199-smp.gz
  label=Gen4.4.199-smp
  read-only #4.4.199-smp
image=/boot/vmlinuz-huge-smp-4.4.199-smp
  label=Hug4.4.199-smp
  read-only #4.4.199-smp
image=/boot/vmlinuz-generic-smp-4.4.201-smp
  initrd=/boot/initrd-4.4.201-smp.gz
  label=Gen4.4.201-smp
  read-only #4.4.201-smp
image=/boot/vmlinuz-huge-smp-4.4.201-smp
  label=Hug4.4.201-smp
  read-only #4.4.201-smp

ChuangTzu · 11-27-2019, 08:17 PM

OP, very interesting, nice job and thanks for sharing. Perhaps a blog post is in order for those that might be inclined to utilize your script.

Chuck56 · 11-27-2019, 08:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ChuangTzu

...Perhaps a blog post is in order for those that might be inclined to utilize your script.

That's a good idea but let's see if it attracts enough attention before I commit to a blog.

Richard Cranium · 11-27-2019, 09:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tonus

That looks great. I might use it more for people I install Slackware for (I don't want to bother with any crappy distribution nor Microsoft outside work)! Looking forward to grub support...

For myself, I keep my personal copy of the package tree with custom rsync script derived from Alien Bob's and upgrade by hand.
Still, I am lazy and use slackpkg after that to check for *.new files...

I use slackroll to do updates on most of my machines now and I have a helper script to create my initrd as well as run grub (slackroll allows you to jump to a shell to run whatever you want when it detects a kernel upgrade).

Please don't view the above comment as anything negative about @Chuck56's script! (It's just how I do stuff now.) He wrote something that he found useful and shared it with the rest of us. That's a very good thing and I have absolutely no wish to discourage others from doing something similar.

Chuck56 · 11-30-2019, 06:08 PM

Ran "autoslackpkg -m dialog" and captured a few of the screens (not all of them) on the -current Sat Nov 30 21:17:21 UTC 2019 upgrade.

Kernel 5.4.1 was the star of this upgrade. I left 4.19.86 on the machine and removed 4.19.85 in the process.

Code:

Linux slacker 5.4.1 #1 SMP Sat Nov 30 14:09:29 CST 2019 x86_64 AMD A8-7600 Radeon R7, 10 Compute Cores 4C+6G AuthenticAMD GNU/Linux

All seems to running well this evening including ktown.

Geist · 12-01-2019, 04:21 PM

I wish you the best of success, maybe I'll use it someday. So far, I err on the side of caution, weighing the inconvenience of updating vs letting the script do it.
So far I am not inconvenienced enough to try automation, because if something goes wrong then I'd like to be there, consciously.

Like that one time I accidentally deleted my home partition and could stop it just in time (not related to slackpkg updates, but, an example) and it only ate my virtualbox images, phew.
Granted, there's backups for that, but blehhhhHHHHHHHhhhhHHhhHHhhHH.

Chuck56 · 12-01-2019, 04:47 PM

No problem. If I only had 1 or 2 systems I would do the same. Updating many systems is when automation really pays off.

TSquaredF · 12-02-2019, 02:47 PM

One of the things that I had been intending to do was to write a script to do what autoslackpkg does. So when I read this post I was quite interested. I installed autoslackpkg on 12/1/19, after I had done the updates of that date, including the 5.4.1 kernel. autoslackpkg handled the updates of 12/1/19 with no problems at all.
I have another -current installation in vbox, which had not been updated to the 11/30/19 changes. This update contained a kernel update & autoslackpkg choked on the kernel update. All worked well until the reboot in the middle of the update process, & elilo failed on the reboot. I rebooted with the install disk, then chrooted into my system. The new kernel has been installed properly, the new initrd has been installed, & all have been copied into the /boot/efi/EFI/Slackware directory. However, elilo.conf is strange:

Code:

$ cat elilo.conf 
prompt
timeout=60
default=Gen#slackpkgupdate
image=vmlinuz-generic-5.4.0
label=Gen5.4.0
initrd=initrd-5.4.0.gz
read-only #5.4.0
append="root=/dev/sda2 ro" #5.4.0
image=vmlinuz-huge-5.4.0
label=Hug5.4.0
#        initrd=initrd-5.4.0.gz
read-only #5.4.0
append="root=/dev/sda2 ro" #5.4.0
image=vmlinuz-generic-#slackpkgupdate
label=Gen#slackpkgupdate
initrd=initrd-#slackpkgupdate.gz
read-only ##slackpkgupdate
append="root=/dev/sda2 ro" ##slackpkgupdate
image=vmlinuz-huge-#slackpkgupdate
label=Hug#slackpkgupdate
initrd=initrd-#slackpkgupdate.gz
read-only ##slackpkgupdate
append="root=/dev/sda2 ro" ##slackpkgupdate

I'm sure I'm doing something wrong, but what?

Chuck56 · 12-02-2019, 03:39 PM

Did you edit elilo.conf before launching autoslackpkg? For sure the default line is a mess. I'll look at it some more later today. I need some recovery time from the morning out in the snow.

TSquaredF · 12-02-2019, 05:36 PM

Yes. I modified all files before running autoslackpkg. elilo.conf looked like the first part of what I posted, down through the first two stanzas, except for the Default line. Thanks.
Bill

Chuck56 · 12-02-2019, 07:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TSquaredF

...default=Gen#slackpkgupdate...

I wonder how "#slackpkgupdate" got inserted as the release number instead of "5.4.0". I'm impressed! The kernel_search function does the heavy lifting for those values. I'm not sure yet how that value was introduced.

TSquaredF · 12-02-2019, 10:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chuck56

I wonder how "#slackpkgupdate" got inserted as the release number instead of "5.4.0". I'm impressed! The kernel_search function does the heavy lifting for those values. I'm not sure yet how that value was introduced.

I have no clue. I do intend to crawl through the script to try to figure how it works, but haven't done any bash scripting except for simple ones for my own use (I used to make a living programming in C++, but haven't done that for 20 years). I did go back in & modified elilo.conf to have the last two stanzas refer to 5.4.1, as they should, & now the vm boots as it should, I can select either Generic or Huge from either 5.4.0 or 5.4.1. The 12/2 upgrades were posted before I finished, so ran autoslackpkg again. It worked perfectly without the kernel upgrades.
Regards,
Bill

Chuck56 · 12-03-2019, 06:47 AM

The script is designed to ignore kernels from testing. I’ll take a look at what happens when a testing kernel is already installed like in your case. Thanks for giving it a go!

TSquaredF · 12-03-2019, 12:07 PM

OK. I hadn't even thought that I was updating a testing kernel. If I have time, I will install a 4.19.X kernel in the vbox system & see how the upgrade from that to 5.4.1 goes. I keep the vbox system pristine for for compiling programs for my main systems.
Thanks again,
Bill