If you were running a cluster of Gentoo driven machines, would you actually compile source for each of them?
Or rather use binary packages?
Gentoo’s masterpiece is binpkg, when you compile for one machine, you don’t have to recompile throughout, use quickpkg to build binary packages. Such packages can be hosted over a central server and each system downloads just the binary package.
You can use this even if your not running a cluster, but frequently reinstall certain packages. Use the -b flag with emerge to install and build the package as well.
Setting the PKGDIR in /etc/make.conf
Add the following directive in make.conf
PKGDIR=”/var/cache/portage/binpkg”
Building binary packages is easy.
quickpkg $(qlist -IC)
That goes on your main server.
You can add the parameter –include-config=y , it’s not reccommended because then you’ll bascically be cloning the host. Your IP addresses, etc. are installed as is. Deploy an instance of puppet.
Now your binary packages are built, you can symlink them and make them available on the webserver for production purposes.
Adding BINHOST to your sister machines, add the following directive in your make.conf, make the necesssary changes:
PORTAGE_BINHOST="http://your.server.repo/path/to/binary/packages" PKGDIR="/var/cache/portage/binpkg"
| Options | |
| –getbinpkg | Fetch binary source if available, else, fetch source |
| –getbinpkgonly | Fetch binary source ONLY |
| –usepkg | Use binary package for merge if available, else resort to source compile |
| –usepkgonly | Use binary package ONLY |
Note: If you specify to fetch/merge using ONLY binary packages, if certain dependencies are missing, emerge will simply abort. Hence, its not advisable to do so.
Comments
One response to “binpkg: a Gentoo Masterpiece”
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