Software Update System   

Manages updating software.

SUMMARY

Software Update System updates the contents of a client directory against the contents in the server folder.

TECHNOLOGIES

1. Eclipse 3.2 for development, debugging.

2. Tomcat 5.0 as the web server.

3. MySQL 5.0 as the database.

4. Signed Applet.

5. XML

PROJECTS IMPLEMENTATION DETAILS

The project uses an XML config file to specify the folder of the server where new versions of the software are present to compare against. It checks all the files in that folder against the files on the client directory and replaces any with a different timestamp.

Figure 1

Since system needs to access the hard drive of the client machine, we are using digitally signed applets. When the user logs in, the applet will ask the users to grant permission to access their hard drive by showing an alert box as shown in Figure 1.

Once the user says "Yes" on the alert box, the system will have access to their hard drive.

Make Update Button shown in Figure 2, lets the user to browse through the client machine to select the folder need to be updated against the server.

Figure 2

Figure 3

When user selects the folder on the client machine as shown in Figure 3, and submits, the applet compares the contents of this folder with the server folder and performs the following operations.

Ø It adds any new files present in the server to the client folder.

Ø If the client folder contains any files that are not present in the server, it deletes those files.

Ø If the timestamp of any file is changed on the server, then the applet will update those files on the client machine.