master/slave mode for dpkg

["W. Borgert" <debacle@knorke.in-berlin.de>]

Package: dpkg
Version: 1.6.14
Severity: wishlist

Hallo,

I like to have a master-slave software installation.  That
does mean that all the software installation process and
holding of installation data is on the master, while the
actual packages are installed on the slave.  Both machines
may be connected via TCP/IP.

This would be useful for installing several similar machine
configurations, or even mass installation.  Also it would
be useful for "embedded" systems, to save a few MBytes.

For example the master may have all the slaves package
information in /var/lib/dpkg-master/<slave>/ instead of the
slaves /var/lib/dpkg/.  Of course, the slave has to have
some kind of deamon (dpkgd?), so that the scripts
{pre,post}{inst,rm} can run on the slave.  I don't know what
impact this idea has on apt and debconf.

Cheers,
-- 
W. Borgert <debacle@debian.org>