Overview

Softaculous has 100s of scripts and we will be adding 100s of scripts every year. In order to avoid over utilization of space which could run into GBs, we designed a method to download the script packages only if ONE user on the server installs the application. By default Softaculous will download only the information of the scripts (e.g. wordpress) to show all the details of the script to the user. It will NOT download the major chunk of data which is the archive e.g. for wordpress is wp.zip and the SQL files e.g. wp.sql . 

When a user on the server installs WordPress, Softaculous will download the package archive and SQL files as well and store it in the scripts folder i.e. /var/softaculous/SCRIPT/SCRIPT.ZIP 
This package will now be available to all other users on the server as well, so Softaculous will not have to download the package again and will save the servers bandwidth.
Also when a new version of the script is made available (e.g. WordPress version was 3.0 and 3.1 is released) the entire package (including the archive and SQL files) will be downloaded by Softaculous when the Softaculous CRON runs. This enables the users to upgrade immediately.

Forcing Downloads of Packages

Some service providers may wish to Pre Download the script package for certain popular scripts. Softaculous has this feature as well. You can configure Softaculous to Pre-Download certain script packages from :

Softaculous Admin Panel -> Software

When you save the settings, Softaculous will now download the entire package for all the pre-download checked scripts even if no user ever installed Softaculous.

Replicating Pre-Download Setting

If you have 100s of servers and would like to Replicate your Pre-Download settings you will need to replicate the Configuration file :

/path/to/softaculous/conf/pre_download

e.g. for cPanel

/usr/local/cpanel/whostmgr/docroot/cgi/softaculous/conf/pre_download

Note : You can refer to the following CLI utility to Enable/Disable Pre Download from command line.