I am about to upgrade all our machines (6) to OpenSUSE 11.1. All the machines will have the same base configuration and very similar total configuration.
Once installed I will naturally have to update each machine with the latest stable packages as well as future updating.
I have limited bandwidth so I really need to update one machine and inturn update the others from the first machine.
I am aware of the “YOU” servers and mirroring the mirror as it were but I certainly don’t have the bandwidth to collect all of the packages available.
When I was using another distro with yum as its package manager it was quite a simple process to set up the following.
“Machine 1” Updates as usual.
“Machine x” connects to the web to check for updates, If updates are available it will check “machine 1” for the update, install it off “machine 1’s” hdd, if not available on “machine 1” get it from the online repository.
This configuration would be ideal. Is it possible with yast (or zypper)?
Sounds like you are trying to set up a local mirror. That is possible, but I answered before doing a search here.
There is info, I believe, in the wiki on setting up a local mirror. If all your machines are to be identical, why does machine #2 have to check the web for updates?
If you’re supporting only a very small network (eg the 6 hosts you describe), instead of setting up an Updates Caching Server you might consider simply configuring an all-purpose caching server like Squid
Here is a SuSE article on creating a Bridging Appliance but you can also set up on any machine designated as a Web Gateway router
Personally I haven’t done this with Squid but have with other caching servers and it’s worked well… You just need to configure a much larger cache (usually disk, not memory) to hold the necessary files… The actual size will depend on your initial need when you upgrade your machines (maybe as much as 5GB?) and thereafter how often you check for updates (more frequent checks mean that you don’t have to cache as many files for longer amounts of time).
It will also help to put the cache on its own disk subsystem, as fast as possible. Can even be on a RAID0 since fault tolerance isn’t something you need but speed is.
Doesn’t a local mirror require me to mirror ALL the available updates (as mentioned in post) not just the ones I will use?
All machines will need to check the web for updates to see if there are any newer updates or files that aren’t on the primary update machine.
They will get files off the primary update server over the web.
So the web still handles all the checks, then the machines use “preferential server” to get the files if they exist.
