[xen-tools-dev] Filesystems and your project goals

[Stéphane Jourdois]

Hi,

Le 25/07/2010 12:58, Dmitry Nedospasov a écrit :
> On Sat, Jul 24, 2010 at 09:53:32AM +0200, Stéphane Jourdois wrote:
>> 3) I can't find a generic enough tool to create any filesystem. Do
>> you think using parted would be a good idea (one more dependency...)
>> ?
>
> I'm not sure that it's that problematic now. Do you think so?

Not so much. It would be a lot more simple for xen-tools to not take 
care of filesystems itself though, provided others already take care of 
that.


>> 4) I'm not sure this is necessary/wanted for a 4.2 release.
>> xen-tools is primarily for production use (please correct me if
>> needed), where you don't use fancy filesystems anyway. btrfs should
>> be added though.
>
> Yes, i would say btrfs is the only thing missing in regard to file system
> creation.

I'll add btrfs in my next bunch of patches during next week.


>> Now some timeline questions :
>>
>> 1) Is your goal to release 4.2 any time soon ?
>
> Personally i thnk we need to tag our current tree with a Pre-RC. I'm really
> satisfied with it so far.

I'm not satisfied with known bugs, but they will be gone soon ;-)
If you prefer a really frozen pre-rc, please wait for my next bunch of 
patches before freezing : btrfs at least will be a non-bug-fixing patch.


> Especially when we commit the last fixes i.e.
> the ones to sudo. (Will be testing that today, got distracted yesterday
> ;)

Take your time indeed !


>> 2) Should we stick to first TODO items ?
>
> I think we should also go through the current TODOs in a seperate
> thread. However, the 4.2 ones are almost done!
>
> All that's left is:
> 1. xen-create-image man page overhaul:

I'll let somebody else take that one.


> 2. Test and support more file system types.

This one should move to >=4.3, but for btrfs.

> 3. Setup locales in the hooks?
>
> @Stephane: didn't you fix 3. in your tree? It really would be enough of
> just forcing the setting of a default locale in the locales script.
> Though this isn't as trivial as it differs from distro to distro

As explained in my push, I only fixed it for debian. Would you be kind 
enough to fix it yourself for centos ? I'm stuck on this one :-/


>> 3) Would you mind moving this filesystem item in 4.3 release goals ?
>
> My dream, as someone who spent a lot of time getting the ubuntu distros
> up-to-date, is that we move to "-common" hooks. We should talk about
> this in a seperate thread. I think it's best we consider several ways of
> how this should be done. In any case, /I think/ this is the most
> important thing that *must* be done in the next big release.

I fully agree. This is a TODO for 5.0 IMHO.


> One other big chunk of patches that we want to merge to our tree are
> Nathans's yum-based patches that he has been quietly hacking on in his
> xen-tools tree [1].

I did look at them, and intend to pull them in my tree for my next push.
I did not have time to review them for the current push.


>> 4) I really think that Steve's aborted move to Xen::Tools was a
>> necessary step in the project as it would provide a lot benefits :
>>   - _really_ improve testing (as in 'make test'), as we can then test
>> each perl function provided by the modules, and test
>> functionalities, not only code styling issues,
>>   - Permit a lot of code refactoring,
>>   - Permit use of xen-tools in other frontends (as in a cute web page),
>>   - Simplify code modification (4333 lines for xen-create-image...),
>>   - Only implies non-visible changes, so no changes in the frontend,
>> no compat issues,
>>   - Last but not least, that is the current /perl way of doing
>> things/, and adding those modules to perl CPAN would provide a great
>> visibility for your project.
>
> I like this idea :) though i'm not the biggest Perl guy in the world :)
>
> Could you elaborate on how this would look though? Do you mean that we
> should commit a Tools module to CPAN? Is there a Xen module? I wouldn't
> mind helping, though you might have to suggest me some reading.

Alex probably knows better than me, but :
  - See [1] for xen-related cpan modules ;
  - We should commit a Xen::Tools module (module tree in fact), and 
current bin/* would be provided with the module as sample frontend.

First task is to move all function calls to lib/Xen/Tools.pm, we can go 
from there. bin/* should only do frontend things (input and output).

The task of moving to a module tree is really not so big, and I will do 
it in a few incremental patches so that review can be really easy.


>> Now, I am willing to implement this step, but only of course if you
>> want me to do it. I estimate the work needed for about a couple of
>> weeks. I imagine you'd want to release 4.2 before and then do this
>> move for a 5.0+ release.
>
> This might be worth doing along with the move to the common code. I
> think both of these steps will greatly improve readability.

I fully agree.

> Actually since you are probably the better Perl-programmer of atleast
> the people currently working on the project, maybe you should try to
> attack this task.

I will do it even if you do not tell me false statements :-D


> I will gladly work on migrating to "-common" hooks.

Great ! I fear that will be a very difficult task :-/


>> /me going to do some research about locales configuration in each
>> supported distribution, now :-)
>
> :P yeah actually, you make a good point when you say that widening our
> userbase would be helpful, because i think there are a lot of silent
> bugs like the locales one. I mean we aren't doing a true base-install
> afterall and as such don't benefit from the completeness of those
> installer scripts in the distros.

I will let Alex or yourself review the debian-submitted bug reports and 
add them to the TODO list :-)


One last thing: apart from the two big steps (code refactoring and hooks 
refactoring) for 5.0, one more is needed: writing functional tests, and 
those will be a lot simpler to write and much more efficient after the 
previous two tasks are done.


Cheers,
Stéphane.

[1] http://search.cpan.org/search?query=Xen&mode=all

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