Seeking feedback from build ISO users

[Jörgen Maas]

Hi all,

I'm currently working on some patches regarding the cobbler buildiso feature.

Now i'm wondering who is using the netboot iso and the profiles as
provided in the boot menu, instead of the system records in the menu?
Could you also describe your use case, e.g. why are you using this
feature?

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks
-- 
Grtz,
Jörgen Maas

[Benjamin Riggs]

We (by and large) don't put individual systems into cobbler. Rather,
we install based off of a number of profiles. We don't run our own DNS
or DHCP servers; thus, cobbler isn't an authoritative source and
maintaining its database would just be additional work for us.

On Tue, Aug 23, 2011 at 11:40 AM, Jörgen Maas <jorgen.maas(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:
>  Hi all,
>
>  I'm currently working on some patches regarding the cobbler buildiso feature.
>
>  Now i'm wondering who is using the netboot iso and the profiles as
>  provided in the boot menu, instead of the system records in the menu?
>  Could you also describe your use case, e.g. why are you using this
>  feature?
>
>  Any feedback would be greatly appreciated!
>
>  Thanks
>  --
>  Grtz,
>  Jörgen Maas
>  _______________________________________________
>  cobbler-devel mailing list
>  cobbler-devel(a)lists.fedorahosted.org
>  https://fedorahosted.org/mailman/listinfo/cobbler-devel
>  


-- 
Benjamin Riggs
Systems Staff
School of Mathematics
612-625-4895

[Jörgen Maas]

On Tue, Aug 23, 2011 at 10:22 PM, Benjamin Riggs <riggs(a)umn.edu&gt; wrote:
>  We (by and large) don't put individual systems into cobbler.
> Rather,
>  we install based off of a number of profiles. We don't run our own DNS
>  or DHCP servers; thus, cobbler isn't an authoritative source and
>  maintaining its database would just be additional work for us.
>  
Thanks for the feedback.
I will change my patches so that ALL profiles are always on the ISO.

-- 
Grtz,
Jörgen Maas

[Glenn Bailey]

>  On Tue, Aug 23, 2011 at 10:22 PM, Benjamin Riggs
> <riggs(a)umn.edu&gt; wrote:
>  > We (by and large) don't put individual systems into cobbler. Rather,
>  > we install based off of a number of profiles. We don't run our own DNS
>  > or DHCP servers; thus, cobbler isn't an authoritative source and
>  > maintaining its database would just be additional work for us.
>  >
>  
>  Thanks for the feedback.
>  I will change my patches so that ALL profiles are always on the ISO. 
Er, again a little late but ditto for us ;-) 

glenn bailey - Terremark Worldwide

[James Cammarata]

On Wed, Aug 24, 2011 at 4:08 AM, Jörgen Maas <jorgen.maas(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:
>  On Tue, Aug 23, 2011 at 10:22 PM, Benjamin Riggs
> <riggs(a)umn.edu&gt; wrote:
> > We (by and large) don't put individual systems into cobbler. Rather,
> > we install based off of a number of profiles. We don't run our own DNS
> > or DHCP servers; thus, cobbler isn't an authoritative source and
> > maintaining its database would just be additional work for us.
> >
>
>  Thanks for the feedback.
>  I will change my patches so that ALL profiles are always on the ISO. 
Jörgen, were any of your patches ever applied? If not, send me a list
(either privately or to the devel list) and I'll get them applied.

[James Cammarata]

> > Thanks for the feedback.
> > I will change my patches so that ALL profiles are always on the ISO.
>
>  Jörgen, were any of your patches ever applied? If not, send me a list
>  (either privately or to the devel list) and I'll get them applied.
>  
Actually I went back and found all these, and applied them:

commit 1561d341e6c97dc2c3e533b31981b890075553f1
Author: Jörgen Maas <jorgen.maas(a)gmail.com&gt;
Date:   Tue Aug 23 11:18:13 2011 +0200

    Buildiso: only process profiles for selected systems.

commit 1429c26d5d6dc8d2eba917de178d0b5d54d28630
Author: J<F6>rgen Maas <jorgen.maas(a)gmail.com&gt;
Date:   Mon Aug 22 19:29:21 2011 -0500

    Buildiso: add batch action to build an iso for selected profiles.

commit 132decb6ab0edae833a9bf7ea4f21ac0b8821bbc
Author: J<F6>rgen Maas <jorgen.maas(a)gmail.com&gt;
Date:   Mon Aug 22 07:15:04 2011 -0500

    Buildiso: use management interface feature.

commit a306eaf1cf0661d63022000d99478f51a0f63db6
Author: J<F6>rgen Maas <jorgen.maas(a)gmail.com&gt;
Date:   Mon Aug 22 07:14:37 2011 -0500

    Buildiso: get rid of some code duplication (ISO header).

commit d03aee3b10a68c221964c7a0a631c1c50dfa44a7
Author: J<F6>rgen Maas <jorgen.maas(a)gmail.com&gt;
Date:   Mon Aug 22 07:14:07 2011 -0500

    Buildiso: add interface to macaddr resolution.

commit 40920d2da98fb5ebb112993491634a28981e6386
Author: J<F6>rgen Maas <jorgen.maas(a)gmail.com&gt;
Date:   Mon Aug 22 07:13:39 2011 -0500

    Buildiso: add Debian and Ubuntu support.

commit 59f75dde733eb21ffed3e60dd74701a753dbca2e
Author: J<F6>rgen Maas <jorgen.maas(a)gmail.com&gt;
Date:   Mon Aug 22 07:13:08 2011 -0500

    Buildiso: select systems from the webinterface.

commit ec7db3126aa800e865faad67a15d8bff07e73f70
Author: J<F6>rgen Maas <jorgen.maas(a)gmail.com&gt;
Date:   Mon Aug 22 07:12:12 2011 -0500

    Fix an exception when buildiso is called from the webinterface.


If there are any that were missed, let us know. Thanks!

[Jörgen Maas]

On Mon, Sep 26, 2011 at 2:09 PM, James Cammarata <jimi(a)sngx.net&gt; wrote:
<snip>
>  If there are any that were missed, let us know. Thanks! 
Hey James,

Thanks for merging! I didn't know you had commit access...
I've got another 6 for the buildiso stuff:

0001-Fix-standalone-ISO-building-for-SuSE-Debian-and-Ubuntu
0002-Build-standalone-ISO-from-the-webinterface
0003-Buildiso-behaviour-changed-after-feedback-from-the-community
0004-Buildiso-minor-cleanup-diff
0005-Bugfix-uppercase-macaddresses-used-in-buildiso-netdevice
0006-Rename-buildiso.header-to-buildiso.template-for-consistency

And then these i'd like to get in master:

3842-Introduce-a-status-field-to-system-objects
3846-Remove-FreeBSD-from-the-unix-breed-as-it-has-its-own
3854-Add-a-proxy-field-to-profile-and-system-objects

Thanks again!

-- 
Grtz,
Jörgen Maas

[James Cammarata]

On Mon, Sep 26, 2011 at 2:03 PM, Jörgen Maas <jorgen.maas(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:
>  On Mon, Sep 26, 2011 at 2:09 PM, James Cammarata
> <jimi(a)sngx.net&gt; wrote:
>  <snip>
> >
> > If there are any that were missed, let us know. Thanks!
>
>  Hey James,
>
>  Thanks for merging! I didn't know you had commit access...
>  I've got another 6 for the buildiso stuff:
>
>  0001-Fix-standalone-ISO-building-for-SuSE-Debian-and-Ubuntu
>  0002-Build-standalone-ISO-from-the-webinterface
>  0003-Buildiso-behaviour-changed-after-feedback-from-the-community
>  0004-Buildiso-minor-cleanup-diff
>  0005-Bugfix-uppercase-macaddresses-used-in-buildiso-netdevice
>  0006-Rename-buildiso.header-to-buildiso.template-for-consistency 
I believe I got all these in this morning.

>  And then these i'd like to get in master:
>
>  3842-Introduce-a-status-field-to-system-objects 
I believe there were concerns about this, being that we typically used
ksmeta for things like this.

>  3846-Remove-FreeBSD-from-the-unix-breed-as-it-has-its-own 
I'll review this one, it should be pretty straight-forward.

>  3854-Add-a-proxy-field-to-profile-and-system-objects 
I'll review this too, is it for web proxy configuration?

[Jörgen Maas]

On Tue, Sep 27, 2011 at 2:38 AM, James Cammarata <jimi(a)sngx.net&gt; wrote:
>  I believe I got all these in this morning.
>  
Thanks!

> > And then these i'd like to get in master:
> >
> > 3842-Introduce-a-status-field-to-system-objects
>
>  I believe there were concerns about this, being that we typically used
>  ksmeta for things like this.
>  
This is mainly useful in the web interface . We have lots of systems in Cobbler.
And we'd like to have a view for the various types of systems in the
DTAP process,
e.g. admins may only want to look at "production" systems whereas developers
might be interested only in "development" systems, etc. Also one could do
different stuff in e.g. snippets based on the system status in the DTAP process.

> > 3854-Add-a-proxy-field-to-profile-and-system-objects
>
>  I'll review this too, is it for web proxy configuration? 
Yes, i'll describe my use case:
We have a central admin network which hosts most administrative tools.
> From there we manage multiple environments, systems in the
> environments 
aren't allowed to make direct connections to the central admin
network.
So it has to go through proxies (to fetch kickstart), in our case one
for each environment.
I tried to standardize the user input so it can later be translated to
the proper
distro specific statements, possible consumers are:
- buildiso
- pxegen
- snippets

I'll redo and resend this patch as per your suggestion, it's up to you
to merge it or not :).
If it does get in, i will add support for it in the above consumers.

Thanks for the feedback!

-- 
Grtz,
Jörgen Maas

[Jörgen Maas]

On Tue, Sep 27, 2011 at 2:38 AM, James Cammarata <jimi(a)sngx.net&gt; wrote:
> > Thanks for merging! I didn't know you had commit access...
> > I've got another 6 for the buildiso stuff:
> >
> > 0001-Fix-standalone-ISO-building-for-SuSE-Debian-and-Ubuntu
> > 0002-Build-standalone-ISO-from-the-webinterface
> > 0003-Buildiso-behaviour-changed-after-feedback-from-the-community
> > 0004-Buildiso-minor-cleanup-diff
> > 0005-Bugfix-uppercase-macaddresses-used-in-buildiso-netdevice
> > 0006-Rename-buildiso.header-to-buildiso.template-for-consistency
>
>  I believe I got all these in this morning.
>  
Ehhh, did you mean you merged these?
If so, no that were other patches....

i'm confused by either my english skills or timezone weirdness...

-- 
Grtz,
Jörgen Maas

[James Cammarata]

>  3854-Add-a-proxy-field-to-profile-and-system-objects 
It doesn't look like you're adding the stuff to field_info.py for the
web gui mappings. Could you submit another patch for that as well and
make sure everything works from both the CLI and web gui? Also, where
is this being used? I don't see any snippet updates or anything else.
If this is just for personal snippet use, again we've typically
rejected expanding the number of official fields in favor of using
ksmeta.

[Jörgen Maas]

On Tue, Sep 27, 2011 at 2:45 AM, James Cammarata <jimi(a)sngx.net&gt; wrote:
> > 3854-Add-a-proxy-field-to-profile-and-system-objects
>
>  It doesn't look like you're adding the stuff to field_info.py for the
>  web gui mappings. Could you submit another patch for that as well and
>  make sure everything works from both the CLI and web gui? 
I dont think it's really needed for normal text fields, or am i mistaken?

This stuff seems to work for me via the cli.

-- 
Grtz,
Jörgen Maas

[James Cammarata]

On Tue, Sep 27, 2011 at 2:40 PM, Jörgen Maas <jorgen.maas(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:
>  On Tue, Sep 27, 2011 at 2:45 AM, James Cammarata
> <jimi(a)sngx.net&gt; wrote:
> >> 3854-Add-a-proxy-field-to-profile-and-system-objects
> >
> > It doesn't look like you're adding the stuff to field_info.py for the
> > web gui mappings. Could you submit another patch for that as well and
> > make sure everything works from both the CLI and web gui?
>
>  I dont think it's really needed for normal text fields, or am i mistaken?
>
>  This stuff seems to work for me via the cli. 
It needs to go in the mappings dictionary, so it is grouped correctly
in the webgui.

[James Cammarata]

On Mon, Sep 26, 2011 at 2:03 PM, Jörgen Maas <jorgen.maas(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:
>  And then these i'd like to get in master:
>
>  3842-Introduce-a-status-field-to-system-objects
>  3846-Remove-FreeBSD-from-the-unix-breed-as-it-has-its-own
>  3854-Add-a-proxy-field-to-profile-and-system-objects 
Ok, I went ahead and merged these, just submit another patch for the
field_info.py stuff and I'll merge that in later.

Thanks!

[Jörgen Maas]

On Wed, Sep 28, 2011 at 4:22 AM, James Cammarata <jimi(a)sngx.net&gt; wrote:
>  Ok, I went ahead and merged these, just submit another patch for the
>  field_info.py stuff and I'll merge that in later.
>  
Thanks again, the patch for the field_info stuff is attached. Is this
what you meant?
Why aren't other text fields in the General section not included in
the mappings dict?

Did you have a chance to look at those other buildiso patches?

-- 
Grtz,
Jörgen Maas

[James Cammarata]

On Wed, Sep 28, 2011 at 12:30 PM, Jörgen Maas <jorgen.maas(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:
>  On Wed, Sep 28, 2011 at 4:22 AM, James Cammarata
> <jimi(a)sngx.net&gt; wrote:
> >
> > Ok, I went ahead and merged these, just submit another patch for the
> > field_info.py stuff and I'll merge that in later.
> >
>
>  Thanks again, the patch for the field_info stuff is attached. Is this
>  what you meant?
>  Why aren't other text fields in the General section not included in
>  the mappings dict? 
Yep, applied and pushed. As for the question, maybe fields do default
to that - I wasn't aware if they did, but it's best to explicitly
place them rather than chance it.

>  Did you have a chance to look at those other buildiso patches?
Did I miss some? I thought I had everything you sent applied.

[Jörgen Maas]

On Thu, Sep 29, 2011 at 5:35 AM, James Cammarata <jimi(a)sngx.net&gt; wrote:
>  Yep, applied and pushed. As for the question, maybe fields do default
>  to that - I wasn't aware if they did, but it's best to explicitly
>  place them rather than chance it.
>  
Thanks again!

>  Did I miss some? I thought I had everything you sent applied. 
I was referring to attached patches:

1) Add code to allow proper standalone ISO building for SuSE and Debian/Ubuntu
2) New feature: build standalone ISO from the web interface (from the
distro view)
3) Buildiso behaviour (wrt to included profiles/systems) changed
(again) after feedback from this list
4) Bit of cleanup to action_buildiso.py
5) Bugfix in buildiso for SuSE systems (uppercase mac addresses in
Cobbler cause autoyast to fail)
6) Rename buildiso.header to buildiso.template for consistency with
other template filenames

All tested in our production environment for quite some time. If you
could take a look at these then great, it would be nice if i could
revert to stock cobbler (master) releases @work :)

-- 
Grtz,
Jörgen Maas

[James Cammarata]

>  I was referring to attached patches:
>
>  1) Add code to allow proper standalone ISO building for SuSE and Debian/Ubuntu
>  2) New feature: build standalone ISO from the web interface (from the
>  distro view)
>  3) Buildiso behaviour (wrt to included profiles/systems) changed
>  (again) after feedback from this list
>  4) Bit of cleanup to action_buildiso.py
>  5) Bugfix in buildiso for SuSE systems (uppercase mac addresses in
>  Cobbler cause autoyast to fail)
>  6) Rename buildiso.header to buildiso.template for consistency with
>  other template filenames
>
>  All tested in our production environment for quite some time. If you
>  could take a look at these then great, it would be nice if i could
>  revert to stock cobbler (master) releases @work :) 
All applied and pushed. Thanks!

[Glenn Bailey]

>  Now i'm wondering who is using the netboot iso and the profiles
> as provided in the boot menu, instead of the system records in the menu?
>  Could you also describe your use case, e.g. why are you using this feature? 
I know I'm a bit late on my answer, but better late than never? We currently use it in
the case of a build engineer is
unable to PXE boot for some odd reason, which rarely happens but has ..

glenn bailey - Terremark Worldwide