the build root would be under /build, you could also share this over nfs too

# tar jxvf ~/stage3*.tar.bz2

# tar jxvf ~/portage-latest.tar.bz2

-mounting all the needed directories, binding the root to /build/chroot is only if you want to build packages into it.

# for x in "/sys:/sys" "/dev:/dev/" "/:/chroot"

> mount -o bind $(echo $x|cut -d':' -f1) /build/$(echo $x|cut -d':' -f2)

# mount -t proc none /build/proc

# cat /etc/resolv.conf > /build/etc/resolv.conf

# chroot /build /bin/bash

now you can set your profile, edit your /etc/mack.conf

(chroot) # env-update; source /etc/profile

(chroot) # ROOT="/chroot" emerge <pkg>

for updating you system image use

(chroot) # ROOT="/chroot" emerge <pkg> -uD

you could use world, but it will install the things you may not want. you can update the world of the build root /build

(chroot) # emerge --sync ; emerge world -uD

This can all be scripted too, you just neet to make 2 scripts; one to start the job and one to work inside the chroot, just change

# chroot /build /bin/bash

# chroot /build /start.sh

__________________

Karl Gustav B. Holz

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karl@new-aeon.com

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http://www.new-aeon.com

On 21-May-07, at 12:27 PM, Ryan Gibbons wrote:

I believe you will still need a tree either way.

I would just have the master server share it's portage tree over nfs, and then when you update the nodes of the cluster, just mount the nfs share, run your emerge system or world or whatever, and then when you are finished umount the nfs share.

I imagine this could be done easily via scripts, complete with error checking for bad mounts bad emerges etc.

Ronan Mullally wrote:
Hi Karl,

On Mon, 21 May 2007, Karl Holz wrote:

  
Is there a way to run gentoo without a portage tree on each box?
      
yes, if  you setup a build system, using a stage3 tarball, and build your
system into a directory. Portage will only be under your /usr/portage and not
into the system image you're building. the good thing about using a Stage3
tarball is you can build you system on any linux system, build your system
image, tarball the image, deploy and install grub on x86, yaboot on Mac PPC,
silo on Sparc64.
    
How are updates handled?  "emerge -uD " isn't going to work
without a portage tree, so I presume I'd need to tell each server which
packages need to be updated with "emerge   ... " to have
it download them from the binhost?


-Ronan
  