[lug] Managing local patches - any interest?

[Alan Robertson]

Hi,

Back when I worked at Lucent, I put together a Linux support environment.

The single biggest problem I ran into was managing local "patches".

We needed to patch certain startup scripts, to supply certain configuration
options, and add other locally defined files to a machine to make it a good
citizen of the local network -partaking and participating in all the way
things were done there.

The problem is that this creates tension and conflicts with RPM and other
parts of the system.  So I created a system which let me manage this and
keep the system both up to date and correctly patched in an automated way. 
If there is sufficient interest, Lucent would consider open sourcing that
software...

It allowed the customers to customize machines based on location,
organization, function, type (workstation vs laptop) or other criteria.

There are two kinds of patches that it manages:

	File replacements/additions	- just plop this file in as is
	File edits			- modify a file according to a script

It manages them in a sort of search path called a PATCHPATH.  You identify
what configuration of patches you want on a machine with PATCHPATH.  For
example, one could specify that you want the "laptop" patches, and the
"developers" patches, and the "Boulder" patches then the "Lucent" patches.

If there was any patch name which occurred in more than one place in the
path, the first version would take precedence.

This worked out very well, and filled a significant need for automating the
inevitable customizations that occur in a site.

Would anyone be interested in participating in such a project, if it were to
be provided under the GPL?  Unfortunately, I am not in a position to spend
much (if any) time on it myself...

	-- Alan Robertson
	   alanr at unix.sh