I have a java application which is used many computers in my office network. This is a java swing application, and when there is an update most of the time I have to update each computer. Currently there is a mechanism to update these applications automatically but it seems like it is not working properly, that is I have a simple table in the database which hold the released versions number and when the application starting it checks its’ versions against the database. If it is not tally then it downloads the whole application from the FTP server which we have installed in our network.
Recently thought to create a server to do this task. But, I don’t know whether it is a good practice to do.
My idea is, there is a server which can get the md5 hashes of each file in the FTP server and send that hash list and file list to its’ clients. When the clients (my swing application) get this lists it compares those hashes against its’ files and if there is a mismatch client can download that file from the FTP server.
Please tell me that is this a good method to do for updating a java application?
You should use Java Webstart.
It’s designed for exactly this scenario: automatic downloading and update of an application from the internet and/or intranet.
It even does clever stuff like application versioning and ensuring that new files only get downloaded when they are needed through intelligent caching.