Prabh <Prab_kar@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Pardon my dumb question, but whats the native package file format for
> IBM-AIX, like .pkg for Solaris, .RPM for RedHat Linux etc.

The installable filesets are in 'BFF files', where BFF stands for
'backup file format'. They are the kind of files produced and consumed
by the AIX commands 'backup' and 'restore'.

All the files that get installed with 'installp' are just backed up
within that package. You can try to 'restore' a package into an empty
directory and see what is in it.

The tricky part is of course how the meta information is packaged:
Names, dependencies, post-install scripts etc.
You can probably understand some of it just by examining a restored
fileset, but there's extensive documentation you can find by browsing.

Normally you do not create these files by hand ('backup'), but with
tools of which there are some around.

> 2. Also, how would you compare Solaris pkging with AIX installp?
> I think, working with the native tools is always preferable to any
> third party plugins to simulate Solaris pkging, but I'm interested
> what can and cannot be done from installp.

Pretty much everything can be done, as long as you can pack it into
pre-install, post-install, post-remove etc. scripts.

I cannot give a detailed comparison as I only created a few simple
Solaris packages, but I think they are roughly equivalent.
Maybe there are more advanced dependency checking features on AIX.

And I think you are right, it's always best to use the native packaging
system.

Yours,
Laurenz Albe