There are times when you want to test changes to a cache (new or old) without modifying the cache itself or the SVN repository. You can do this sort of test using a test cache. You can have as many test caches as you need, and the changes you make in them are not required to be in SVN first.
To create a test cache, either copy an existing test cache, or just build a cache from scratch using make-vdt (it will be automatically created for you).
cd /p/vdt/public/html cp -r <existing-cache-dir> test-cache/<login>
To make changes in your test cache use the normal
make-vdt command with the --test switch:
cd <workspace> svn update defs make-vdt build-scripts <package> ./make-vdt --test [Test cache name] <package>
You can optionally specify a test cache name. If you do not, your login is used.
Note: The svn update is there simply
to remind you that make-vdt will not
be checking SVN for you, as it does without the --test
switch. If you are certain of the state of your checkout, you do
not need to do this step each time.
Installation from a test cache is just like a normal installation, but with the cache URL suitably modified:
pacman -get http://vdt.cs.wisc.edu/test-cache/<login>:<package>
In November 2008, Scot added a new build-script that creates some
OSG specific files in the test caches. This is so that admins
who are doing testing for us from a test cache can install some
packages the same way they would install them from the OSG cache.
Currently, only the ce.pacman and wn-client.pacman files are created,
but it is easy to add more. Just include extra files in the list in
the build-scripts/make-osg-test-cache-files.pl script.
In order to avoid extra wgets when make-vdt is run, the files will only be generated if they do not already exist in the test cache area. In order to force them to update, use the --force option:
./make-osg-test-cache-files.pl --force --test [Test cache name]