[olug] Watching installs to reproduce/replicate later.

[Tony Gies]

checkinstall does something like you're describing. It can watch an
install.sh or make install or what have you, and hook its attempts to write
the filesystem so that nothing actually gets installed, then produce a deb
or rpm package that you can use to install the software in a manageable way
or in other environments. Because I prefer to install things through the
package manager if I can at all help it, instead of letting some
unaccountable shell script or makefile just chuck stuff wherever it wants,
I use this all the time when dealing with software for which a package is
not available and I don't want to bother packaging it properly myself.

https://wiki.debian.org/CheckInstall



Tony Gies <tony.gies at gruppe86.net>
Technical Projects Director
gruppe86 | IT Consulting, Software Development, Systems Integration

On Thu, Feb 5, 2015 at 9:06 PM, Rob Townley <rob.townley at gmail.com> wrote:

> What about checking everything into git or hg or some repo.
>
> Do your install and git diff.
>
> On Feb 5, 2015 8:28 PM, "Dan Linder" <dan at linder.org> wrote:
> >
> > Well, I found "http://portablelinuxapps.org/".  It looks close, but I've
> > not looked at it closely.
> >
> > I'm not quite convinced this is the solution...but it might be what is
> > available.  (Though I'm sure with a few scripts to capture the rpm/deb
> > databases before and after, along with some sort of filesystem monitor
> > script, plus other hacker wizadry it's possible if the Portable Linux
> Apps
> > option fails me.)
> >
> > Dan
> >
> > On Tue, Feb 3, 2015 at 4:33 PM, Damian Harouff <cekkent at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > > I don't know of a pointy-clicky tool, but I use Ansible to deploy
> > > replicated setups to servers: http://www.ansible.com/how-ansible-works
> > >
> > > It doesn't have a "record" function, but your shell history should be
> able
> > > to provide you with a command history that you can use to generate an
> > > Ansible playbook.
> > >
> > > On Tue, Feb 3, 2015 at 3:31 PM, Dan Linder <dan at linder.org> wrote:
> > >
> > > > Many years ago on Windows there was a tool I could use to take a
> snapshot
> > > > of a computer, then I could install programs, edit files, update the
> > > > registry, reboot, etc, and the next time I ran that snapshot tool it
> > > would
> > > > save a file that summarized all the changes performed.  From there it
> was
> > > > possible to replicate that install to other compatible Windows
> systems by
> > > > "replaying" that summary file.
> > > >
> > > > Can anyone point me to a similar tool on the Linux side
> (RHEL/CentOS)?
> > > >
> > > > Thanks,
> > > > DanL
> > > >
> > > > --
> > > > ***************** ************* *********** ******* ***** *** **
> > > > "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?"
> > > >     (Who can watch the watchmen?)
> > > >     -- from the Satires of Juvenal
> > > > "I do not fear computers, I fear the lack of them."
> > > >     -- Isaac Asimov (Author)
> > > > ** *** ***** ******* *********** ************* *****************
> > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > OLUG mailing list
> > > > OLUG at olug.org
> > > > https://lists.olug.org/mailman/listinfo/olug
> > > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > OLUG mailing list
> > > OLUG at olug.org
> > > https://lists.olug.org/mailman/listinfo/olug
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > ***************** ************* *********** ******* ***** *** **
> > "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?"
> >     (Who can watch the watchmen?)
> >     -- from the Satires of Juvenal
> > "I do not fear computers, I fear the lack of them."
> >     -- Isaac Asimov (Author)
> > ** *** ***** ******* *********** ************* *****************
> > _______________________________________________
> > OLUG mailing list
> > OLUG at olug.org
> > https://lists.olug.org/mailman/listinfo/olug
> _______________________________________________
> OLUG mailing list
> OLUG at olug.org
> https://lists.olug.org/mailman/listinfo/olug
>