SW-TOOLS ~~~~~~~~ Quick introduction A few tools for maintaining user-contributed software at a site. There are currently two main bits: * A tool for building programs on multiple machines simultaneously. This saves time and effort and makes proper support for multiple architectures more realistic. * A CGI script for navigating the documentation provided in the contributed software area. There are also some other bits which aren't as interesting. Installation The software comes with a `configure' script which should be able to work out how to set the software up. You need an ANSI C compiler (GCC would be best, probably), a POSIX-ish system, and Perl 5.003 or later. Since it's designed to work in a heterogeneous environment, here's how I'd do an initial build. First, unpack the distribution archive (the thing this file came in) on some network filesystem which all your hosts can see. Then make a directory for each architecture. Now, once for each architecture, change into the directory you made for it, and run ../configure --prefix=PREFIX --exec-prefix=EXEC-PREFIX where PREFIX is where you want your installed software to end up, and EXEC-PREFIX is where architecture-specific things should go for this architecture. (They can be the same if you like; I don't recommend this). Then run `make', and `make install'. You should now be ready. Configuration The next thing to do is tell `sw' which architectures you have and which machines compilations should be done on. Edit PREFIX/share/archtab in a text editor, and fill it in, one entry per line, architecture space hostname. Architecture names are displayed by the configuration script as it goes, and can be discovered by typing `sw arch' on the appropriate host. The main `sw' program should just work now. Read the manual to find out how it works. The rest of this document assumes you've done that. You can set up site policy by editing a script PREFIX/share/sw-precommit if you like: if this script returns failure, a `commit' command will fail. We use it here to ensure that a user has written a documentation file for the package. The CGI script needs a little more work. You need to tell the web server where to find it (by default it's gone into EXEC-PREFIX/cgi-bin). You also need to edit its configuration file, which is in PREFIX/share/sw.conf. The most important thing to do is to uncomment the line saying that you've edited the file; otherwise the script will complain at your users. You should also fill in a value for `domain'. Then just publish the URL for the CGI, and everyone will be happy. The script is described in sw-cgi(1). Other stuff All of this was written by Mark Wooding. It's available under the GNU General Public License, which you have a copy of in the file called `COPYING' included with the distribution. You don't get a warranty, not of any kind. If it doesn't work, that's your hard luck. (Send me a bug report and I might fix it, though.) Cheers, Mark Wooding, Local variables: mode: text End: