Packaging of control system software

Control system software consists of several parts - the core of the control system, drivers for integration of devices, configuration for user interfaces, alarm system, etc. Once the software is developed and configured, it must be installed to computers where it runs. Usually, it is installed on an operating system whose services it needs, and also in some cases dynamically links with the libraries it provides. Operating system can be quite complex itself - for example, a typical Linux distribution consists of several thousand packages. To manage this complexity, we have decided to rely on Red Hat Package Management system (RPM) to package control system software, and also ensure it is properly installed (i.e., that dependencies are also installed, and that scripts are run after installation if any additional actions need to be performed). As dozens of RPM packages need to be prepared, we are reducing the amount of effort and improving consistency between packages through a Maven-based infrastructure that assists in packaging (e.g., automated generation of RPM SPEC files, including automated identification of dependencies). So far, we have used it to package EPICS, Control System Studio (CSS) and several device drivers. We perform extensive testing on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.5, but we have also verified that packaging works on CentOS and Scientific Linux. In this article, we describe in greater detail the systematic system of packaging we are using, and its particular application for the ITER CODAC Core System. (authors)