F21 System Wide Change: Modular Kernel Packaging for Cloud
= Proposed System Wide Change: Modular Kernel Packaging for Cloud =
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/Modular_Kernel_Packaging_for_Cloud
Change owner(s): Cloud SIG / Sandro Mathys <red(a)fedoraproject.org>, Kernel
Team / Josh Boyer <jwboyer(a)fedoraproject.org>
Kernel modules that are not necessary in virtualized environments become
optionally (un)installable.
== Detailed Description ==
Space is precious in the cloud, therefore the Cloud SIG tries to keep the
images' footprint as small as reasonably possible. Therefore, we'd like to
split the kernel into two (plus one meta) packages. One package would contain
the core modules, i.e. a minimum(-ish) set of drivers to only just be able to
run in virtualized environments. And another package for the rest. The
'kernel' package would then become a meta package that installs both (-core
and -drivers).
== Scope ==
Normal installations will continue installing the kernel (meta-)package and
users should not notice any difference. Same goes for updating from earlier
Fedora releases. But where desired, it should become possible to install only
a reasonably minimal subset of kernel modules. Both kernel and kernel-core
will Provide "kernel", therefore the "install instead of update" magic
of
yum/dnf will work as expected even if only kernel-core is installed.
* Proposal owners: The kernel package needs to be changed to produce a meta-
(kernel) and two new packages (-core and -drivers) packages additionally to
those already built out of the SRPM. Aside from the obvious changes to the
package spec file, that includes evaluating what modules need to go into which
package and making sure updating from pre-split kernel packages works as
expected. Most of this work has already been done but still requires some fine-
tuning: [1]
* Other developers: Anaconda must allow to install kernel-core instead of
kernel, when using a kickstart file. (To gain full benefits of this change, but
the change itself can be implemented without). Work has been done but is not
well tested yet: [2]
* Release engineering: No changes necessary.
* Policies and guidelines: No changes necessary.
[1] http://copr-fe.cloud.fedoraproject.org/coprs/jwboyer/kernel-core/
[2] https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1074522