5. Architecture

5.1. Server

Installation sources are kept on a Subversion server. Typically this will be a linux server running Apache web server and Subversion server. Such configuration can done on a dedicated server or one of the svn hosting services available. Optionally, in order to speed up download times for users, a snapshot of the Subversion repository can be uploaded as static files to http server or cloud hosting services such as Amazon’s S3. The advantage of using a static snapshot is that it can be further optimize by using file caching services such as CloudFront or Akamai.

5.2. client

User of an installer created with instl will have to first download a package consisting of:

svn client - if using direct SVN access

OR:

downloading agent such as wget or curl. Such agent may or may not be already installed on the user’s computer.

instl client. The python sources of instl can be provided, but that would make the installation process depends on the user having the exact python version installed. A better choice would be to pre-compile instl using tool such as Pyinstaller, and provide the user with a stand alone binary instl client.