[arch-general] doubts about rolling release

[Dennis Herbrich]

On Sat, Mar 08, 2014 at 10:40:27AM -0600, Stephen Martin wrote:
> If you want to use arch in a server environment, you should probably use your
> own repo to be safe.
> 
> Have a testing machine be on rolling release. When that machine is stable,
> push its packages to a private repo and update your server via the private
> repo.

That is, IMNSHO, a terribly sensible idea for reliable running of critical
installations, and I've been implementing this procedure for a while now with
good results: Manually, with a lot of pacman ad-hackery. :P

I have yet to find some "glue" to make this easier and more fool proof for
production usage. Is it possible that really no-one has yet created a script or
Makefile or anything to automate the process of:

1) Updating a running test installation, including AUR and custom packages, to
   a specific point in time (most often: now)
1a) Alternative/Prerequisite to 1): Create a testing repository containing
    exactly those packages present after an update of a (hypothetical) testing
    system, i.e. a given set of packages.
2) Snapshotting the package state of a given running installation (or offline
   root), including AUR and custom packages
3) Synchronizing a specific custom repository to this exact package state
   determined in 2), without losing the custom and AUR packages on the way, and
   without keeping old/replaced packages around needlessly.

Doing this is easy, superficially, but *practically* there are a few pitfalls
involved, which kept me from just hacking up some scripts "real quickly"
myself, dooming me to a life of repeating error-prone steps manually.

Does anyone know of an existing and reliable solution to this administrative
problem, or is this something to contribute back one day?

Thanks,
  Dennis

-- 
"Den Rechtsstaat macht aus, dass Unschuldige wieder frei kommen."
  Dr. Wolfgang Schäuble, Bundesinnenminister (14.10.08, TAZ-Interview)

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