Image Packaging System

The Image Packaging System, also known as IPS, is a cross-platform package management system created by the OpenSolaris community in coordination with Sun Microsystems. It is used by Solaris 11 and several Illumos-based distributions: OpenIndiana, OmniOS, XStreamOS and a growing number of layered applications, including GlassFish, across a variety of operating system platforms. IPS is coded in the Python programming language.

Features

IPS enables a superuser to search for, install, and remove Software [package (installation)|software packages] from the Solaris system.

Use of ZFS, allowing multiple boot environments and easy package operation rollbacks
Transactional actions
Support for multiple platform architectures within a single package
Legacy support for SVR4 packages
Extensive search grammar
Remote search capability
Changes-only based package updates
Network package repository
File and network-based package publication
Package operation history
On-disk package format
Multi-platform ports for layered applications:
* Broad platform support: Windows, Linux, OS X, Darwin, Solaris, OpenSolaris, Illumos and AIX
* Cross-platform update notification and package management Graphical user interfaces.

Considerations

Due to the fact that IPS delivers each file in a separate shelf with a separate checksum, a package update only needs to replace files that have been modified. When dealing with ELF binaries, IPS computes checksums only from the loaded parts of an ELF binary. This means in practice that when only the ELF comment section has been changed, there would be no need to update it. However, this method of delivery can cause slower operation when the input source is on a medium with high latency.