Request from FESCo

[David Huff]

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 at 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