Re: [Vserver] Anounce: CentOS 5 guest image

Daniel Hokka Zakrisson wrote:
> Sandino Araico Sánchez wrote:
>
>> Yum is marked unstable in Gentoo. It works sometimes but i got used to
>> unpacking the guest image and running a script that creates the config
>> directory and the config file... It takes me about 20 minutes to setup a
>> new vservar and have it running....
>>
>
> What config file? You're also aware of vserver ... build -m template, yes?
>
I am aware of build -m template but most of the parameters are the same
for all my vservers so I hardcoded them in a script so I can use it with
a small config file with only the values that change. It's not rocket
science to create a config directory with all the correct values.

The script is not general purpose. It's designed for the defaults I use
in all my vservers (no more than 50 lines of code)... It's not intended
to reinvent the build -m template; It's just a customization for my
service.
> 20 minutes does seem like a long time, especially if it doesn't include
> downloading the guest. What else is your script doing?
>
20 minutes from registering the new vserver in the DNS, connecting to
the server, to creating the new vserver, verifying everything works and
sending notification to the customer....
>
>> Yum in Gentoo is sensitive to upgrades of dependencies; it breaks
>> easily.... Whenever Yum breaks It's easier to unpack a guest image than
>> revdep-rebuild.....
>>
>
> So, pin the few packages it does depend on? Seems to me like you're
> unnecessarily complicating the procedure.
>
LibXML2 with USE=python (for example) ... My opinion is that the host
server installation should be as minimal as possible and as hardened as
possible.... Yum depends on ~10 packages I don't need for anything else.
I can install yum and revdep-rebuild every time It breaks (I know it
breaks every now and then), but I don't gain a huge beneffit over
unpacking a host image and running a configuration script......

Now, think about supporting not only CentOS but also Fedora, Ubuntu,
Debian, Slackware, Gentoo, SuSE, an embedded system a friend jut cooked,
I will end up with lots and lots of new dependency packages and several
distinct installation procedures instead of a single unified procedure
of unpacking a host image and running a configuration script.

Perhaps you are underestimating the usefulness of host images... Perhaps
a general purpose procedure could be a build -m template install
followed by unpacking a host image of the Linux distro of your choice.
If you have many vservers with many different distros you don't need to
install all the distro-specific tools; you just need to unpack the host
image and that's it.

-- 
Sandino Araico Sánchez 
edce71952773051c884f6a49cc194445 8a3ac99fbf88d0c58677ffd9706081bb5471b756
2bc1ad9b84e28ba8725ee0008c80a7f0 5945bcf00844d5a421f7b66e3c5c28467e48f2bc
--
2d188949024d886941f4dff4f500918d 510f47aeec377edb804439a0dae774b9d94269b9
0732340cb5d7e7e456e091f11ae3dcb1 f78a9751c2b8f4af0b56f9f175f20172c2c38847
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