On 02/25/2010 07:32 PM, Garrett Holmstrom wrote:
On Feb 25, 2010, at 16:33, Jeremy Katz wrote:
> You *can't* have one image that supports multiple providers as it
> currently stands. There's too much variation, some of which is ways
> which really matters a lot. eg, for EC2/Eucalyptus, you have to deal
> with the somewhat ridiculous way they set up block devices. For other
> providers, things are more "normal" but most of them have their own
> quirks and idiosyncracies. eg, I remember I had to do something
> quirky when I hand-installed Fedora 11 on my Linode, but I've now
> forgotten what it was I had to do.
>
> The first target really is getting newer than Fedora 8 available for
> use on EC2 (including the kernel being used) and some tools around
> that. There's then more that can be done, but I'm of the opinion that
> the more focused we are at first, the more we'll be able to have
> success. I know Greg disagrees with me there, though :-)
You're absolutely right - everybody's images will be somewhat different.
(EC2's fstab is... strange.) I was still under the impression that we planned on
publishing several different types of images. Now that you mention it, focusing on just
EC2 to begin with sounds like a great plan to me.
FESCo's suggestion is something along the lines of, "Dear VPS Provider, we
noticed that you provide Fedora 9 and 10. Those releases are end-of-life. Would you
consider offering Fedora 12? Would you like assistance in making an image for your needs?
We have F12 images in formats X, Y, and Z available. Please contact cloud(a)l.fp.o if you
have questions." Of course if we only offer one image type such a message will have
to be different if it even makes sense to send one at all.
I agree with both of you, this is why we need to focus providing a way
to reproducible build pre-installed images that can then be adapted to
each a target infrastructure.
Jeremy is right, "you *can't* have one image that supports multiple
providers," however you can have separate ks files for each provider and
a standard build process. This is why I tried to put all the EC2
specific configuration in to the ks file not in the tool that build the
images.
-D