How to clean up /var/cache/zypper/RPMS ?

[Amedee Van Gasse]

I was playing a bit with kdirstat, and I noticed a directory that takes
up a lot of space:
/var/cache/zypper/RPMS
It seems to contain cached versions of rpms that I manually
downloaded&installed, for example VMware server.

I come from Ubuntu, and I still use Debian on my server, so I'm used to
a large package cache. But the Suse way to do things is different, and I
found out that package caching only happens when you explicitly enable
it in /etc/zypp/repos.d/*.repo. Otherwise the packages are always
downloaded.

What I have not yet found, is the Suse alternative for "aptitude
autoclean" delete only out-of-date package files but keep current ones.

I also would like to delete some of the VMware RPMs, because I have
played a bit with different versions, and they are quite large. How can
I clean up that cache directory? Can I just rm the unwanted files
without any negative repercussions, or what is the official Suse way to
do that?

Kind regards,
Amedee

[Rodney Baker]

Post by Amedee Van Gasse
I was playing a bit with kdirstat, and I noticed a directory that takes
/var/cache/zypper/RPMS
It seems to contain cached versions of rpms that I manually
downloaded&installed, for example VMware server.
I come from Ubuntu, and I still use Debian on my server, so I'm used to
a large package cache. But the Suse way to do things is different, and I
found out that package caching only happens when you explicitly enable
it in /etc/zypp/repos.d/*.repo. Otherwise the packages are always
downloaded.
What I have not yet found, is the Suse alternative for "aptitude
autoclean" delete only out-of-date package files but keep current ones.
I also would like to delete some of the VMware RPMs, because I have
played a bit with different versions, and they are quite large. How can
I clean up that cache directory? Can I just rm the unwanted files
without any negative repercussions, or what is the official Suse way to
do that?
Kind regards,
Amedee

From the command line, as root, zypper clean will remove all downloaded rpms.

[Amedee Van Gasse]

Post by Rodney Baker

Post by Amedee Van Gasse
What I have not yet found, is the Suse alternative for "aptitude
autoclean" delete only out-of-date package files but keep current ones.

From the command line, as root, zypper clean will remove all downloaded rpms.

According to the man page, that will remove *all* rpms, not only those
that are out-of-date.
And after trying it, I found out that it did *not* remove the rpms of
the packages I installed manually. Neither did zypper clean --all.

Kind regards,

Amedee Van Gasse

[Philipp Thomas]

Post by Amedee Van Gasse
According to the man page, that will remove *all* rpms, not only those
that are out-of-date.
And after trying it, I found out that it did *not* remove the rpms of
the packages I installed manually. Neither did zypper clean --all.

I'd say this calls for a a bug report.

Philipp

[Amedee Van Gasse]

Post by Philipp Thomas

Post by Amedee Van Gasse
According to the man page, that will remove *all* rpms, not only those
that are out-of-date.
And after trying it, I found out that it did *not* remove the rpms of
the packages I installed manually. Neither did zypper clean --all.

I'd say this calls for a a bug report.

I find it hard to believe that this is a bug. My gut tells me it's just
a "simple" configuration issue, but I don't know.

Anyway before I file a bug report, I would appreciate it if someone
could confirm.

Test scenario:

$ ls -l /var/cache/zypper/RPMS
Download VMware server from the VMware website (or any other RPM that
isn't in one of the repo's)
# zypper in file-you-have-downloaded.rpm
$ ls -l /var/cache/zypper/RPMS
# zypper clean --all
$ ls -l /var/cache/zypper/RPMS

Please let me know what happens. If anyone else still sees files in
/var/cache/zypper/RPMS after zypper clean --all, then I'll file a bug
report. If not, then I'll assume it's just a misconfiguration on my end,
better known as PEBKAC ;-)

[Carlos E. R.]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Post by Amedee Van Gasse
I was playing a bit with kdirstat, and I noticed a directory that takes
/var/cache/zypper/RPMS
It seems to contain cached versions of rpms that I manually
downloaded&installed, for example VMware server.
I come from Ubuntu, and I still use Debian on my server, so I'm used to
a large package cache. But the Suse way to do things is different, and I
found out that package caching only happens when you explicitly enable
it in /etc/zypp/repos.d/*.repo. Otherwise the packages are always
downloaded.
What I have not yet found, is the Suse alternative for "aptitude
autoclean" delete only out-of-date package files but keep current ones.
I also would like to delete some of the VMware RPMs, because I have
played a bit with different versions, and they are quite large. How can
I clean up that cache directory? Can I just rm the unwanted files
without any negative repercussions, or what is the official Suse way to
do that?

It's a relatively new feature, but I think you can simply delete the rpms
manually. I haven't tried, so I don't know. At worst, you'd have to run
"zypper clean --all" later.

Automatic cleaning... there is a configuration file that mighjt have some
options for this, would be worth checking.


- --
Cheers,
Carlos E. R.

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[Basil Chupin]

Post by Amedee Van Gasse

Post by Philipp Thomas

Post by Amedee Van Gasse
According to the man page, that will remove *all* rpms, not only those
that are out-of-date.
And after trying it, I found out that it did *not* remove the rpms of
the packages I installed manually. Neither did zypper clean --all.

I'd say this calls for a a bug report.

I find it hard to believe that this is a bug. My gut tells me it's just
a "simple" configuration issue, but I don't know.
Anyway before I file a bug report, I would appreciate it if someone
could confirm.
$ ls -l /var/cache/zypper/RPMS
Download VMware server from the VMware website (or any other RPM that
isn't in one of the repo's)
# zypper in file-you-have-downloaded.rpm
$ ls -l /var/cache/zypper/RPMS
# zypper clean --all
$ ls -l /var/cache/zypper/RPMS
Please let me know what happens. If anyone else still sees files in
/var/cache/zypper/RPMS after zypper clean --all, then I'll file a bug
report. If not, then I'll assume it's just a misconfiguration on my end,
better known as PEBKAC ;-)

Are you sure that you are talking about /var/cache/ZYPPER and not ZYPP
because I do not have a cache called zypper on my system.

Ciao.

[Amedee Van Gasse]

Post by Basil Chupin
Are you sure that you are talking about /var/cache/ZYPPER and not ZYPP
because I do not have a cache called zypper on my system.

Yes I am quite sure!

***@saruman { ~ }$ ls -al /var/cache/zypper/RPMS/
totaal 582824
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 jan 18 15:45 .
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 dec 23 18:43 ..
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1035615 dec 25 13:12
magicolor2430DL-1.5.0-1.i386.rpm
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 31131299 dec 24 02:17
VirtualBox-2.1.0_41146_openSUSE111-1.i586.rpm
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 564034376 dec 26 11:32
VMware-server-2.0.0-122956.i386.rpm

I already rm'd a few files in that directory, there used to be a few
more. I just hope I didn't break anything.

[Fred A. Miller]

Post by Amedee Van Gasse

Post by Philipp Thomas

Post by Amedee Van Gasse
According to the man page, that will remove *all* rpms, not only those
that are out-of-date.
And after trying it, I found out that it did *not* remove the rpms of
the packages I installed manually. Neither did zypper clean --all.

I'd say this calls for a a bug report.

I find it hard to believe that this is a bug. My gut tells me it's just
a "simple" configuration issue, but I don't know.
Anyway before I file a bug report, I would appreciate it if someone
could confirm.
$ ls -l /var/cache/zypper/RPMS
Download VMware server from the VMware website (or any other RPM that
isn't in one of the repo's)
# zypper in file-you-have-downloaded.rpm
$ ls -l /var/cache/zypper/RPMS
# zypper clean --all
$ ls -l /var/cache/zypper/RPMS
Please let me know what happens. If anyone else still sees files in
/var/cache/zypper/RPMS after zypper clean --all, then I'll file a bug
report. If not, then I'll assume it's just a misconfiguration on my end,
better known as PEBKAC ;-)

the proper dir. is: /var/cache/zypp/packages

zypper clean --all DID remove all files here.

Fred

[Basil Chupin]

Post by Amedee Van Gasse

Post by Basil Chupin
Are you sure that you are talking about /var/cache/ZYPPER and not ZYPP
because I do not have a cache called zypper on my system.

Yes I am quite sure!

You are Sure, sure :-) ?

OK, in which case I don't want to miss out and want a copy of
/var/cache/zypper for myself :-) .

Ciao.

[Basil Chupin]

Post by Fred A. Miller

Post by Amedee Van Gasse

Post by Philipp Thomas

Post by Amedee Van Gasse
According to the man page, that will remove *all* rpms, not only those
that are out-of-date.
And after trying it, I found out that it did *not* remove the rpms of
the packages I installed manually. Neither did zypper clean --all.

I'd say this calls for a a bug report.

I find it hard to believe that this is a bug. My gut tells me it's just
a "simple" configuration issue, but I don't know.
Anyway before I file a bug report, I would appreciate it if someone
could confirm.
$ ls -l /var/cache/zypper/RPMS
Download VMware server from the VMware website (or any other RPM that
isn't in one of the repo's)
# zypper in file-you-have-downloaded.rpm
$ ls -l /var/cache/zypper/RPMS
# zypper clean --all
$ ls -l /var/cache/zypper/RPMS
Please let me know what happens. If anyone else still sees files in
/var/cache/zypper/RPMS after zypper clean --all, then I'll file a bug
report. If not, then I'll assume it's just a misconfiguration on my end,
better known as PEBKAC ;-)

the proper dir. is: /var/cache/zypp/packages

Ooopsy. Are you sure that it *is* .../cache/*zypp* and not zypper?

The OP and others accept that zypper is the correct sub-dir.


Ciao.

[Fred A. Miller]

Post by Basil Chupin

Post by Fred A. Miller

Post by Amedee Van Gasse

Post by Philipp Thomas

Post by Amedee Van Gasse
According to the man page, that will remove *all* rpms, not only those
that are out-of-date.
And after trying it, I found out that it did *not* remove the rpms of
the packages I installed manually. Neither did zypper clean --all.

I'd say this calls for a a bug report.

I find it hard to believe that this is a bug. My gut tells me it's just
a "simple" configuration issue, but I don't know.
Anyway before I file a bug report, I would appreciate it if someone
could confirm.
$ ls -l /var/cache/zypper/RPMS
Download VMware server from the VMware website (or any other RPM that
isn't in one of the repo's)
# zypper in file-you-have-downloaded.rpm
$ ls -l /var/cache/zypper/RPMS
# zypper clean --all
$ ls -l /var/cache/zypper/RPMS
Please let me know what happens. If anyone else still sees files in
/var/cache/zypper/RPMS after zypper clean --all, then I'll file a bug
report. If not, then I'll assume it's just a misconfiguration on my end,
better known as PEBKAC ;-)

the proper dir. is: /var/cache/zypp/packages

Ooopsy. Are you sure that it *is* .../cache/*zypp* and not zypper?
The OP and others accept that zypper is the correct sub-dir.

Quite sure.

Fred

[Basil Chupin]

Post by Fred A. Miller

Post by Basil Chupin

Post by Fred A. Miller

Post by Amedee Van Gasse

Post by Philipp Thomas

Post by Amedee Van Gasse
According to the man page, that will remove *all* rpms, not only those
that are out-of-date.
And after trying it, I found out that it did *not* remove the rpms of
the packages I installed manually. Neither did zypper clean --all.

I'd say this calls for a a bug report.

I find it hard to believe that this is a bug. My gut tells me it's just
a "simple" configuration issue, but I don't know.
Anyway before I file a bug report, I would appreciate it if someone
could confirm.
$ ls -l /var/cache/zypper/RPMS
Download VMware server from the VMware website (or any other RPM that
isn't in one of the repo's)
# zypper in file-you-have-downloaded.rpm
$ ls -l /var/cache/zypper/RPMS
# zypper clean --all
$ ls -l /var/cache/zypper/RPMS
Please let me know what happens. If anyone else still sees files in
/var/cache/zypper/RPMS after zypper clean --all, then I'll file a bug
report. If not, then I'll assume it's just a misconfiguration on my end,
better known as PEBKAC ;-)

the proper dir. is: /var/cache/zypp/packages

Ooopsy. Are you sure that it *is* .../cache/*zypp* and not zypper?
The OP and others accept that zypper is the correct sub-dir.

Quite sure.
Fred

Good. Now we can wait for responses from Carlos et alia stating that
they have var/cache/zypper on their systems :-) .

Ciao.

[Amedee Van Gasse]

Post by Fred A. Miller
the proper dir. is: /var/cache/zypp/packages

I have that one too, but it's empty.
What do you mean with the word "proper"?

[Dave Plater]

Post by Amedee Van Gasse

Post by Fred A. Miller
the proper dir. is: /var/cache/zypp/packages

I have that one too, but it's empty.
What do you mean with the word "proper"?

I have both /var/cache/zypper/RPMS and the /var/cache/zypp/packages
directories on my system. /var/cache/zypper/ appeared quite a long time
ago but on inspection it contains copies of rpm's that I have installed
via rpm and not yast or zypper, further more these are rpms that I have
in my local repositories and have not installed from a remote
repository, this is weird and a waste of disk space.
The /var/cache/zypp/packages directory contains all the kept packages
from online installations and zypper clean deletes all of these if used.
I periodically move these packages to my local repos and delete any out
of date ones manualy and also if any of these packages need
reinstallation then libzypp detects that they are present in the cache
and doesn't download them again.
I would think that the /var/cache/zypper/RPMS directory contents is a
bug from somewhere, possibly rpm or generated from a refresh.
If you haven't got a /var/cache/zypp/ directory you have a problem, try
installing something via zypper or yast and it should appear, it is
where libzypp downloads packages to and if the keeppackages option is
set to 1 the packages are kept in a directory matching the online repo
name in /var/cache/zypp/packages.
Regards
Dave P

[Carlos E. R.]

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Hash: SHA1

Post by Basil Chupin
Good. Now we can wait for responses from Carlos et alia stating that
they have var/cache/zypper on their systems :-) .

Different directories, different use. See the reply from Dave Plater for
an explanation. I don't have enabled the rpm cache (yet), so I can't
verify myself.

- --
Cheers,
Carlos E. R.

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[Amedee Van Gasse]

Post by Dave Plater

Post by Amedee Van Gasse

Post by Fred A. Miller
the proper dir. is: /var/cache/zypp/packages

I have that one too, but it's empty.
What do you mean with the word "proper"?

I have both /var/cache/zypper/RPMS and the /var/cache/zypp/packages
directories on my system. /var/cache/zypper/ appeared quite a long time
ago but on inspection it contains copies of rpm's that I have installed
via rpm and not yast or zypper, further more these are rpms that I have
in my local repositories and have not installed from a remote
repository, this is weird and a waste of disk space.

Yes.
This is exactly the same as on my system.

Post by Dave Plater
The /var/cache/zypp/packages directory contains all the kept packages
from online installations and zypper clean deletes all of these if used.
I periodically move these packages to my local repos and delete any out
of date ones manualy and also if any of these packages need
reinstallation then libzypp detects that they are present in the cache
and doesn't download them again.

I have not configured zypper to cache packages but what you write sounds
logical.

Post by Dave Plater
I would think that the /var/cache/zypper/RPMS directory contents is a
bug from somewhere, possibly rpm or generated from a refresh.
If you haven't got a /var/cache/zypp/ directory you have a problem,

I have it, so I don't have a problem.

Post by Dave Plater
try
installing something via zypper or yast and it should appear, it is
where libzypp downloads packages to and if the keeppackages option is
set to 1 the packages are kept in a directory matching the online repo
name in /var/cache/zypp/packages.

Yes, I know.


Thank you for verifying and confirming my findings.

[Jan Kupec]

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Hash: SHA1

Post by Amedee Van Gasse

Post by Philipp Thomas

Post by Amedee Van Gasse
According to the man page, that will remove *all* rpms, not only those
that are out-of-date.
And after trying it, I found out that it did *not* remove the rpms of
the packages I installed manually. Neither did zypper clean --all.

I'd say this calls for a a bug report.

I find it hard to believe that this is a bug. My gut tells me it's just
a "simple" configuration issue, but I don't know.
Anyway before I file a bug report, I would appreciate it if someone
could confirm.

Yes, it's a bug. 'zypper clean' should get rid of the files.

To your former question: yes, you can just 'rm' the files without any
side effects.

- --
cheers,
jano


Ján Kupec
YaST team
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Nick: jniq
Channels: #zypp #yast #suse #susecz
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[Amedee Van Gasse]

Post by Carlos E. R.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Post by Amedee Van Gasse

Post by Philipp Thomas

Post by Amedee Van Gasse
According to the man page, that will remove *all* rpms, not only those
that are out-of-date.
And after trying it, I found out that it did *not* remove the rpms of
the packages I installed manually. Neither did zypper clean --all.

I'd say this calls for a a bug report.

I find it hard to believe that this is a bug. My gut tells me it's just
a "simple" configuration issue, but I don't know.
Anyway before I file a bug report, I would appreciate it if someone
could confirm.

Yes, it's a bug. 'zypper clean' should get rid of the files.
To your former question: yes, you can just 'rm' the files without any
side effects.

Please only reply to the list, I'll read it there.
And thank you for your answer.

[Jan Kupec]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Post by Carlos E. R.

Post by Amedee Van Gasse
I was playing a bit with kdirstat, and I noticed a directory that takes
/var/cache/zypper/RPMS
It seems to contain cached versions of rpms that I manually
downloaded&installed, for example VMware server.
I come from Ubuntu, and I still use Debian on my server, so I'm used to
a large package cache. But the Suse way to do things is different, and I
found out that package caching only happens when you explicitly enable
it in /etc/zypp/repos.d/*.repo. Otherwise the packages are always
downloaded.
What I have not yet found, is the Suse alternative for "aptitude
autoclean" delete only out-of-date package files but keep current ones.
I also would like to delete some of the VMware RPMs, because I have
played a bit with different versions, and they are quite large. How can
I clean up that cache directory? Can I just rm the unwanted files
without any negative repercussions, or what is the official Suse way to
do that?

It's a relatively new feature, but I think you can simply delete the
rpms manually.

Yes, you can.

Post by Carlos E. R.
Automatic cleaning... there is a configuration file that mighjt have
some options for this, would be worth checking.

AFAIK, we don't have anything like automatic removal of cached packages
that are out of date. Yet.

- --
cheers,
jano


Ján Kupec
YaST team
- ---------------------------------------------------------(PGP)---
Key ID: 637EE901
Fingerprint: 93B9 C79B 2D20 51C3 800B E09B 8048 46A6 637E E901
- ---------------------------------------------------------(IRC)---
Server: irc.freenode.net
Nick: jniq
Channels: #zypp #yast #suse #susecz
- ---------------------------------------------------------(EOF)---
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[Jan Kupec]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Post by Basil Chupin
Are you sure that you are talking about /var/cache/ZYPPER and not ZYPP
because I do not have a cache called zypper on my system.

That is because you did not install an rpm file with zypper so far. Like
'zypper in foo.rpm'.

The good thing about this cache is, that anything you install this way,
will be there, even remote rpms, like in 'zypper install
http://download.foo.org/rpms/the.rpm'

- --
cheers,
jano


Ján Kupec
YaST team
- ---------------------------------------------------------(PGP)---
Key ID: 637EE901
Fingerprint: 93B9 C79B 2D20 51C3 800B E09B 8048 46A6 637E E901
- ---------------------------------------------------------(IRC)---
Server: irc.freenode.net
Nick: jniq
Channels: #zypp #yast #suse #susecz
- ---------------------------------------------------------(EOF)---
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[Josef Reidinger]

Post by Jan Kupec

Post by Carlos E. R.

Post by Amedee Van Gasse
I was playing a bit with kdirstat, and I noticed a directory that takes
/var/cache/zypper/RPMS
It seems to contain cached versions of rpms that I manually
downloaded&installed, for example VMware server.
I come from Ubuntu, and I still use Debian on my server, so I'm used to
a large package cache. But the Suse way to do things is different, and I
found out that package caching only happens when you explicitly enable
it in /etc/zypp/repos.d/*.repo. Otherwise the packages are always
downloaded.
What I have not yet found, is the Suse alternative for "aptitude
autoclean" delete only out-of-date package files but keep current ones.
I also would like to delete some of the VMware RPMs, because I have
played a bit with different versions, and they are quite large. How can
I clean up that cache directory? Can I just rm the unwanted files
without any negative repercussions, or what is the official Suse way to
do that?

It's a relatively new feature, but I think you can simply delete the
rpms manually.

Yes, you can.

Post by Carlos E. R.
Automatic cleaning... there is a configuration file that mighjt have
some options for this, would be worth checking.

AFAIK, we don't have anything like automatic removal of cached packages
that are out of date. Yet.

I think that remove out-of-date cached package is not trivial task as
you cache package typical to possibility to reinstall it without
download. So if you try upgrade some package, find problems and want
downgrade you expect that package is still cached and not removed as out
of date.
JR

[Amedee Van Gasse]

Post by Carlos E. R.
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Post by Basil Chupin
Are you sure that you are talking about /var/cache/ZYPPER and not ZYPP
because I do not have a cache called zypper on my system.

That is because you did not install an rpm file with zypper so far. Like
'zypper in foo.rpm'.
The good thing about this cache is, that anything you install this way,
will be there, even remote rpms, like in 'zypper install
http://download.foo.org/rpms/the.rpm'

I appreciate its existence, but I would like more control over it.
Anyway, it seems like rm'ing the files there won't hurt me, and that's all
the control any sysadmin needs after all! :-)

[Philipp Thomas]

Post by Amedee Van Gasse

Post by Rodney Baker
From the command line, as root, zypper clean will remove all downloaded rpms.

According to our zypper developer its all or nothing with the current
version. And it's not clear if there ever will be a way to do so. He has yet
to see plausible use cases for a package cache.

Post by Amedee Van Gasse
And after trying it, I found out that it did *not* remove the rpms of
the packages I installed manually. Neither did zypper clean --all.

That might be worth a bug report in bugzilla.

Philipp

[Joachim Schrod]

Post by Philipp Thomas

Post by Rodney Baker
From the command line, as root, zypper clean will remove all downloaded rpms.

According to our zypper developer its all or nothing with the current
version. And it's not clear if there ever will be a way to do so. He has yet
to see plausible use cases for a package cache.

Then please give him mine:

I share package cache and repository meta infos via NFS for several
systems that are updated in sync; to prevent them all downloading
the same files again and again. There's no need to set up an own
package repository for that use case, a changed zypp.conf and an
NFS mount is all that's needed.

I don't do automatic updates, this would disturb operations too
much -- these are workstations where people are logged in for weeks
or months, not private home systems that get turned off at night.
Instead I do nightly checks and prefetch to-be-updated packages.
The nightly check sends an email to a sysadmin. After a quick
control if the update must be managed manually (e.g., kernel
updates, libc updates, X server updates, and such) I have a command
that does the update on all systems.

Please note that this is actually a reimplementation of THE
standard Debian update check functionality: apticron. apticron is
actually better than my solution because it includes package
changelogs in the email and thus eases the decision process how
important the update is. And apticron is one piece of Debian's
update management that I miss sorely on openSUSE.

But it should be clear from my description that I actually don't
need all packages in the cache: I need the currently installed one
and all newer ones, owing to the prefetch situation described above.

Not quite incidentally I have a daily cron job that cleans up my
package cache exactly for this situation and the process described
above. It's written in Perl and uses the CPAN classes
RPM::Header::PurePerl to parse version infos, and RPM::VersionSort
to compare package versions properly. (These two CPAN modules are
not available as SUSE packages, AFAIK, at least zypper search
doesn't find them; but I have my own Perl installation anyhow for
other reasons.) It deletes all packages from the cache where newer
versions are installed. It keeps all versions of uninstalled
packages, as one might be in the process to test them before
rolling them out on all systems.

One could think about keeping packages after an update around for a
few days, to be able to revert in case of problems, that would be
an easy enhancement. If people are interested, I can post that
script on the opensuse list; it's just 90 lines including POD docs.
But be aware that it won't run on a standard SUSE system due to the
missing Perl modules.

Just my 0.05 EUR (inflation adjusted).

Joachim

[Amedee Van Gasse]

Post by Joachim Schrod

Post by Philipp Thomas

Post by Rodney Baker

Post by Rodney Baker
From the command line, as root, zypper clean will remove all

downloaded rpms.

According to our zypper developer its all or nothing with the current
version. And it's not clear if there ever will be a way to do so. He has yet
to see plausible use cases for a package cache.

I share package cache and repository meta infos via NFS for several
systems that are updated in sync; to prevent them all downloading
the same files again and again. There's no need to set up an own
package repository for that use case, a changed zypp.conf and an
NFS mount is all that's needed.
I don't do automatic updates, this would disturb operations too
much -- these are workstations where people are logged in for weeks
or months, not private home systems that get turned off at night.
Instead I do nightly checks and prefetch to-be-updated packages.
The nightly check sends an email to a sysadmin. After a quick
control if the update must be managed manually (e.g., kernel
updates, libc updates, X server updates, and such) I have a command
that does the update on all systems.
Please note that this is actually a reimplementation of THE
standard Debian update check functionality: apticron. apticron is
actually better than my solution because it includes package
changelogs in the email and thus eases the decision process how
important the update is. And apticron is one piece of Debian's
update management that I miss sorely on openSUSE.

Does it surprise you that until 6 months ago I used Ubuntu on the desktop,
and that I still use Debian on my servers?

[Carlos E. R.]

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Post by Josef Reidinger

Post by Jan Kupec

Post by Carlos E. R.
It's a relatively new feature, but I think you can simply delete the
rpms manually.

Yes, you can.

Good!

Post by Josef Reidinger

Post by Jan Kupec

Post by Carlos E. R.
Automatic cleaning... there is a configuration file that mighjt have
some options for this, would be worth checking.

AFAIK, we don't have anything like automatic removal of cached packages
that are out of date. Yet.

I think that remove out-of-date cached package is not trivial task as
you cache package typical to possibility to reinstall it without
download. So if you try upgrade some package, find problems and want
downgrade you expect that package is still cached and not removed as out
of date.

You could set the count, ie, how many versions of ssame package to allow.

Another posibility would be to age out those packages with different
"major" number. Ie, allow several releases, but not different versions
after so many days. This would remove packages from the previous opensuse
version, and allow for some time for testing before going back.

Another posibility would be a cron job that mails a list of rpm files
matching some criteria to root. Or moves those files to a secondary cache,
where the admin chan choose.

- --
Cheers,
Carlos E. R.

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[David C. Rankin]

Post by Amedee Van Gasse

Post by Basil Chupin
Are you sure that you are talking about /var/cache/ZYPPER and not ZYPP
because I do not have a cache called zypper on my system.

Yes I am quite sure!
totaal 582824
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 jan 18 15:45 .
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 dec 23 18:43 ..
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1035615 dec 25 13:12
magicolor2430DL-1.5.0-1.i386.rpm
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 31131299 dec 24 02:17
VirtualBox-2.1.0_41146_openSUSE111-1.i586.rpm
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 564034376 dec 26 11:32
VMware-server-2.0.0-122956.i386.rpm
I already rm'd a few files in that directory, there used to be a few
more. I just hope I didn't break anything.

Amedee,

Do you have the -k (keep packages) option enabled on your repos?

18:40 ecstasy:~> cat /etc/zypp/repos.d/games.repo
[games]
name=games
baseurl=http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/games/openSUSE_11.0/
type=rpm-md
enabled=1
autorefresh=1
gpgcheck=1
keeppackages=1
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
--
David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E.
Rankin Law Firm, PLLC
510 Ochiltree Street
Nacogdoches, Texas 75961
Telephone: [phone]
Facsimile: [phone]
www.rankinlawfirm.com

[Bob S]

Post by Jan Kupec

Post by Carlos E. R.
It's a relatively new feature, but I think you can simply delete the
rpms manually.

Yes, you can.

Good!

Question:

Does Yast have a cache like that?

Bob S

[Rajko M.]

Post by Bob S
Does Yast have a cache like that?

It is the same cache.

Keeping files is based on repository, not package manager.
Though, YaST is missing ability to configure that.
For now, you can use zypper.

I guess this is worth bug report, or feature request.

[Amedee Van Gasse]

Post by David C. Rankin

Post by Amedee Van Gasse

Post by Basil Chupin
Are you sure that you are talking about /var/cache/ZYPPER and not ZYPP
because I do not have a cache called zypper on my system.

Yes I am quite sure!
totaal 582824
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 jan 18 15:45 .
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 dec 23 18:43 ..
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1035615 dec 25 13:12
magicolor2430DL-1.5.0-1.i386.rpm
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 31131299 dec 24 02:17
VirtualBox-2.1.0_41146_openSUSE111-1.i586.rpm
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 564034376 dec 26 11:32
VMware-server-2.0.0-122956.i386.rpm
I already rm'd a few files in that directory, there used to be a few
more. I just hope I didn't break anything.

Amedee,
Do you have the -k (keep packages) option enabled on your repos?
18:40 ecstasy:~> cat /etc/zypp/repos.d/games.repo
[games]
name=games
baseurl=http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/games/openSUSE_11.0/
type=rpm-md
enabled=1
autorefresh=1
gpgcheck=1
keeppackages=1
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

***@saruman { ~ }$ grep keeppackages /etc/zypp/repos.d/*.repo
/etc/zypp/repos.d/eric.lavar.de.repo:keeppackages=0
/etc/zypp/repos.d/JPackage.repo:keeppackages=0
/etc/zypp/repos.d/repo_10.repo:keeppackages=0
/etc/zypp/repos.d/repo_11.repo:keeppackages=0
/etc/zypp/repos.d/repo_12.repo:keeppackages=0
/etc/zypp/repos.d/repo_13.repo:keeppackages=0
/etc/zypp/repos.d/repo_14.repo:keeppackages=0
/etc/zypp/repos.d/repo_15.repo:keeppackages=0
/etc/zypp/repos.d/repo_16.repo:keeppackages=0
/etc/zypp/repos.d/repo_17.repo:keeppackages=0
/etc/zypp/repos.d/repo_18.repo:keeppackages=0
/etc/zypp/repos.d/repo_19.repo:keeppackages=0
/etc/zypp/repos.d/repo_1.repo:keeppackages=0
/etc/zypp/repos.d/repo_20.repo:keeppackages=0
/etc/zypp/repos.d/repo_21.repo:keeppackages=0
/etc/zypp/repos.d/repo_22.repo:keeppackages=0
/etc/zypp/repos.d/repo_23.repo:keeppackages=0
/etc/zypp/repos.d/repo_2.repo:keeppackages=0
/etc/zypp/repos.d/repo_3.repo:keeppackages=0
/etc/zypp/repos.d/repo_4.repo:keeppackages=0
/etc/zypp/repos.d/repo_5.repo:keeppackages=0
/etc/zypp/repos.d/repo_6.repo:keeppackages=0
/etc/zypp/repos.d/repo_7.repo:keeppackages=0
/etc/zypp/repos.d/repo_8.repo:keeppackages=0
/etc/zypp/repos.d/repo_9.repo:keeppackages=0
/etc/zypp/repos.d/repo-debug.repo:keeppackages=0
/etc/zypp/repos.d/repo-non-oss.repo:keeppackages=0
/etc/zypp/repos.d/repo-oss.repo:keeppackages=0
/etc/zypp/repos.d/repo.repo:keeppackages=0
/etc/zypp/repos.d/repo-source.repo:keeppackages=0
/etc/zypp/repos.d/repo-update.repo:keeppackages=0

I guess not.

[Jan Kupec]

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Post by Jan Kupec

Post by Basil Chupin
Are you sure that you are talking about /var/cache/ZYPPER and not ZYPP
because I do not have a cache called zypper on my system.

That is because you did not install an rpm file with zypper so far. Like
'zypper in foo.rpm'.

So you are specifically talking about using zypper from the command
line, and not zypper as from YaST, right?

Yast does not use zypper, it uses libzypp, the library which powers both
yast and zypper. So yes, i am talking about zypper, the command line tool.

Post by Jan Kupec
The good thing about this cache is, that anything you install this way,
will be there, even remote rpms, like in 'zypper install
http://download.foo.org/rpms/the.rpm'

I prefer to use smart to maintain my system - although at the moment I
use both zypper and smart. With smart I know where the rpms go, and if

With zypp-based apps, they go to
/var/cache/zypp/packages/<repoalias>/..., if keeppackages attribute is
set in the repository's .repo file. If it is not, no .rpms are cached.

The only exception is when you install an _rpm file_ directly with
zypper, then the rpms go to /var/cache/zypper/RPMS. Note that this is
different than 'zypper in packagename'. It is 'zypper in
rpm_file_path_or_url.rpm'.

there is a hassle with dependencies I can use "rpm -Uvh *rpm --test" to
find the problems and remove the 'offending' rpms before finally running
"rpm -Uvh *rpm".

Hm... hassle with dependencies? I don't remember i ever needed to do
something like this with zypper/yast. What kind of hassle do you mean?

Another reason why I prefer smart to zypper is that smart downloads the
rpms but does not apply them until all are downloaded.

We are currently working on this. See e.g.
http://en.opensuse.org/Libzypp/Refactoring/Commit

zypper on the other hand applies each rpm as it is downloaded so that
should the connection to the internet be lost and power to the computer
is lost as well then the whole dependency lattice is lost and a reboot
will most probably leave me with an unbootable/unusable system.

It is not that bad since it installs the rpms in correct order, so
unless the cut happened when installing some circular dependencies, the
dependency tree would not break.

- --
cheers,
jano


Ján Kupec
YaST team
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