Set installation

For sets, a special-purpose package referred to as a Set Installation Package (SIP) is used. The SIP is used to control the installation of a set's member packages. The SIP's name and package instance name are always the same as those used to identify the set itself. For instance, the SIP controlling the installation of the Foundation Set (fnd) is also named Foundation Set (fnd). A SIP is distinguished from other packages by the CATEGORY parameter "set" in its pkginfo(4) file and by the presence of a special type of package information file named setinfo(4). This file is used to convey information about a set's member packages to the software installation tools.

When pkgadd(1M) recognizes that a SIP is being processed, it sets up special environment variables and makes them available to the SIP's procedure scripts. This allows for a well-defined interface between the scripts and pkgadd(1M) that enables the SIP scripts to do most of the work when processing set member package selection and interaction. The SIP's request and preinstall scripts are especially designed to use this environment.

Among other things, the SIP's request script uses these environment variables to access the setinfo(4) file and access the set member packages' request and default response files (if any). After the request script has finished processing, the SIP's preinstall script is then used to pass back to pkgadd(1M) a list of set member packages selected for installation as part of the set (see case study 7 for examples of these scripts).

The following is a list of the environment variables made available to a SIP's procedure scripts.

$SETINFO

Used to access the setinfo(4) file.

$REQDIR

Provides the directory where the set member packages' request and default response files, if any, reside.

$RESPDIR

Contains the name of the directory where processed response files are to be placed. This response file could be the result of having run a set member package's request script (in the case of custom installation) or simply a copy of the default response file provided with the SIP (in the case of automatic installation).

$SETLIST

Used to pass back to pkgadd(1M) the list of packages selected for installation as part of the set.

After it has processed a SIP, pkgadd adds the set member packages selected (it gets this from the file represented by $SETLIST in the installation environment) to the list of packages to be installed and proceeds to install them.