Current - a server for Red Hat's up2date

Current is an open source implementation of a server to interact with the
Up2date Agent shipped in Red Hat Linux.  Everything is implemented for a
basic, anonymous only system. We are working to extend support for
non-anonymous (fully managed) setups.

If you have an existing Current setup, you MUST read the RELEASE_NOTES file
from version to version to see whats changed (config, setup, need to rebuild
database, whatever). If you are interested in the low-level details, please
read the CHANGELOG. The docs directory contains the longer documentation for
new sites or reference. The TODO file and the roadmap.txt file will tell you
where we are going.

Basically, the functionality of 1.0 is enough to get a small network (20-30
clients) updated with basic security patches. 1.4 is scalable enough to
take this basic, anonymous only functionality to hundreds of hosts
(500 or so seems to be a good point).  1.6 should scale about the same as 
1.4 if not more, its main difference is its SQL based backend.

There is a freshmeat entry and a website, mailing lists, cvs repository, etc
at http://current.tigris.org. If you will be using current in a production
enviroment, we recommend you join at least the users mailing list, but 
you should definately join the annouce list.

Comments to the mailing list please. Bug reports should contain enough
detail to help us see what the problem is. Patches always cheerfully looked
at.

  NOTE: !WARNING! ACHTUNG- This server should be carefully tested and
  monitored before being trusted with production clients (workstations OR
  servers). The safety and security of your network and hosts is YOUR 
  responsibility - we do our best to put out a high-quality server, but
  its up to you to decide how your network will be managed.
  
Status:
    
    server itself: 
        Please note that Current 1.5.x/1.6.x is only tested and claimed to
        work on RHL 9 to FC2. Your server should run all original Red Hat
        packages (and should itself be fully up to date with errata).

        The single exception is that on a RHL 8.0 server, you need a newer
        mod_python (3.0.1 at least) to deal with bugs in that package. A
        suitable mod_python package and src package are provided on the 
        web site. (There's nothing 'special' about that package - its just
        3.0.1)
    
    rhn_register:
        Current can handle rhn_register versions of 1.3.x through at least
        2.8.28.  For rhn_register this means generating a usable system id
        and not crashing the client.  (IE, all the API functions are at
        least stubbed out.) Both the GUI and text interfaces are supported.

        Note that rhn_register disappears in the limbo betas and 8.0,
        consumed by the up2date package itself.
        
    up2date: 
        Current can handle up2date versions from 2.7.x up to 4.3.x for all
        simple cases (it works here).  Versions prior to 2.7 will not be
        supported. Both the GUI and text interfaces are supported. 

        Due to bugs in up2date itself, I HIGHLY recommend 2.7.63 or higher
        if you are using clients in the 2.7 range. 2.7.83 has proved stable
        for just about everyone - if you're sticking with 2.7.x for the time
        being, run 2.7.83. (There are two serious bugs in earlier versions
        of the client and neither can be fixed by the server).

    rhn_check / rhnsd:
        Not working. (rhnsd just calls rhn_check). The calls are stubbed
        out in current v1.4.4, and should not produce an error.

    rhn-applet:
        Fully supported in v1.5.4 and later.

Maintainers:
Jack Neely <jjneely@gmail.com>
Hunter Matthews <thm@duke.edu> 
John Berninger <jwbernin@berningeronline.net>
dev@current.tigris.org
users@current.tigris.org

Contributors:
Ivan Martinez      Bug fixes
Scott Schmit       Bug fixes
Toby D. Reeves     SQL work
Barry K. Nathan    Debugging help
Sam Bingner        Debugging help