> Is there a way to copy down the update for WDSC version 6.0 to a network
> drive instead of me having to use the updater for the next 6 machines I
> have to install this on?
Yes, Eclipse provides such a facility. I have been meaning to write this
up in a formal document and post it, but I have not had the time. Here is
the basic gist of it.
When you are installing updates, you are talking to an Eclipse "Update
Site" which is just an XML file which points to the updates that are in
JAR files. This is all served via a standard HTTP server.
What you can do is create your own internal update site. Eclipse then
provides a facility for mirroring and consolidating one or more remote
update sites to your update site as well as redirecting the install/update
mechanism to use this internal site instead of the remote site.
Step 1: Setup an HTTP Server (on any platform/OS). I am using my OS/400
Apache Server. For reference purposes later on, let's assume you can
access the folder that this HTTP Server is serving from your PC via the
UNC path name \\WEBSERVER\web-root
Step 2: Run Eclipse process to create a mirror of the WDSC update sites.
I created a batch file for this process which I run regularly. The
process is intelligent enough to just grab the latest updates. This is
what is in my batch file:
REM Modify these variables as appropriate
set drive=C:
set wdsc=\IBM\WDSC\6.0
set local=\wdsc_site
set remote=\\WEBSERVER\web-root\wdsc6_updates
set url=http://webserver/wdsc6_updates
%drive%
CD %wdsc%\eclipse
REM Get Updates for Product Updater
java -cp startup.jar org.eclipse.core.launcher.Main -application
org.eclipse.update.core.standaloneUpdate -command mirror -from
http://www3.software.ibm.com/ibmdl/pub/software/rationalsdp/updater/60/update
-to %drive%\%local% -mirrorURL %url%/site.xml
REM Get Updates for Rational Web Developer
java -cp startup.jar org.eclipse.core.launcher.Main -application
org.eclipse.update.core.standaloneUpdate -command mirror -from
http://www3.software.ibm.com/ibmdl/pub/software/rationalsdp/rwd/60/update
-to %drive%\%local% -mirrorURL %url%/site.xml
REM Get Updates for WDSC
java -cp startup.jar org.eclipse.core.launcher.Main -application
org.eclipse.update.core.standaloneUpdate -command mirror -from
http://www3.software.ibm.com/ibmdl/pub/software/websphere/iseries/wdsc600/update
-to %drive%\%local% -mirrorURL %url%/site.xml
REM Copy to Web Server
cd %local%
xcopy . %remote% /S /Y /D
REM End of batch file
To use this batch file you would just need to adjust the set statements at
the top. Also, this is only pulling updates for WDSC Standard Edition. It
could easily be adjusted to update the Advanced Edition by changing the
IBM URL's being mirrored.
The first time you run this process it has to download nearly 3 GB of
updates. It will download them to your local mirror of the update site,
and then it copies this mirror to your web server. If you run the Web
server on Windows, and install Eclipse or WDSC on that server, you could
avoid having two copies of the mirror. You could also likely just adjust
the batch file so that it was mirroring to a mapped network drive that was
the web server folder.
The Eclipse documentation for the features being used can be found here:
http://help.eclipse.org/help30/index.jsp?topic=/org.eclipse.platform.doc.isv/reference/misc/update_standalone.html
Step 3: The above process, in addition to mirroring the update sites,
creates a file named policy.xml which contains the instructions that tells
Eclipse to redirect to your local update site. To make WDSC use this
file, you need to open the Rational Product Updater on each PC. Then
choose Preferences -> Update Sites from its menu and enter this URL in the
field for the policy file:
http://webserver/wdsc6_updates/policy.xml
Of course update the URL as appropriate.
Once this is done, whenever you check for updates it is checking your
local web server and installing from it. You just need to re-run the
batch file whenever there are some new updates from IBM and it will update
your local mirror with the latest updates.
This has worked well for us internally. It may sound daunting and a lot
of work, but it is a good long term strategy for managing the deployment
and update of WDSC across multiple systems.
Mark
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