[et-mgmt-tools] Adding a distribution - where do I put the files?

[Msquared]

On Fri, Feb 23, 2007 at 09:49:25AM -0500, Michael DeHaan wrote:

> And then, you can use the following parameter in your kickstart files 
> for the "--url"
> 
> url --url http://servername/cobbler_track/local_mirror/fc6tree/restofpath

I was just about to ask about cobbler_track, but then I noticed that
/etc/httpd/conf.d/cobbler.conf takes care of it.  Nice!

> Note that you want to include the full path to the "os" or "tree"
> directory, and don't want to stop at the root.   That's what I mean by
> "restofpath".

So in the case of a Fedora DVD, which of the following should that be:

  .../local_mirror/fc6/repodata
  .../local_mirror/fc6/Fedora
  .../local_mirror/fc6/Fedora/base
  .../local_mirror/fc6/Fedora/RPMS

?

> I think you've given an excellent reason to add "how to import a
> kickstart tree from a DVD" to the manpage.

I'd like the manpage to clarify that 'cobbler import --path' doesn't
actually copy any files about.  Of course, in retrospect this makes sense
to me, since you're importing from a location that is already locally
accessible.  :-)

But at the time I was trying to understand all of this, I didn't know what
to expect, and my brain was trying to fit everything into orthogonal
little boxes, and assuming that import should unilaterally slurp from
wherever it was given into its own local store made sense to me.

> >  cobbler import --mirror=root at localhost:/media/cdrom 
> >  --mirror-name=testimport
>  
> Actually that will work.   Creative workaround! :)

I realised that might work from this info here:

  http://cobbler.et.redhat.com/cobbler.html#repository_mirroring_workflow

+1 for the manpage.  :)

There was something I noticed after doing that import, though: the import
process appeared to use the last component of the path I gave as a
component in the path inside ks_mirror.

After pondering it momentarily, I realised it's an rsync feature related
to the trailing slash (or lack thereof, in this case).  Perhaps it's worth
moentioning that 

  cobbler import --mirror=root at localhost:/media/cdrom --mirror-name=fc6

will copy the files into

  /var/www/cobbler/ks_mirror/fc6/cdrom

whereas

  cobbler import --mirror=root at localhost:/media/cdrom/ --mirror-name=fc6

will copy the files into

  /var/www/cobbler/ks_mirror/fc6

Most likely, the second one is the one that is desired.  :)

Also, should I import root at localhost:/media/cdrom/ or
root at localhost:/media/cdrom/restofpath/  (to refer to your --url example
above) ?

> >However, will this cause me grief in future?  What happens when I
> >'cobbler sync'?  Will it try to re-mirror based on whatever is in
> >/media/cdrom?  Can I stop it from doing that?
>  
> Cobbler sync won't try to re-mirror that, because cobbler knows
> kickstart trees really don't change.

Oh yeah, that made me realise something: After running the import, I
couldn't find anywhere in /var/lib/cobbler/* that referred to the files
that were just imported,

However, after my rsync-slash discovery, I retried the import but with the
trailing slash, and noticed that there was more information in the
profile, this time!  Specifically:

    ks_meta:
        tree: 'http://provisioning//ks_mirror/fc6'

Previously ks_meta was just {} (which means an empty list?)

I think that answers my question about how the provisioning knows about
the files that were imported, but shouldn't that be:

        tree: 'http://provisioning/cobbler/ks_mirror/fc6'

?

> >Also, should I make the mirror-name something that is related to where
> >I'm getting the files from (eg: fc6dvd or fc6public), related to what
> >the files are for (eg: fc6), or related to my provisioning server (eg:
> >localprovserver; ie: the machine I am running cobbler on)?
>  
> The mirror name is basically just to pick something you can remember
> later.  

I realise that, but if I have an idea of a convention that I could use, it
may be easier to recall later.  :)  I'm sure those who have experience
will have their own ideas, but it would be nice to have at least a
suggestion for newbies.

It's may be worth noting that the name you supply will be used by cobbler
to build the name of a distro and a profile based on that import.

Mind you, although it's easy to remember later that I called it 'fc6',
it's a bit harder to remember that cobbler translated that into
'var_www_cobbler_ks_mirror_fc6_images_xen', so +1 for your auto-shorten
idea.  :)

> Since you've actually imported the profile, you're going to need to go
> into /var/lib/cobbler/profiles to list the repos you use.  This isn't
> really as scary as it sounds, but if you're concerned, you can back up
> the profiles file first.

Ah, so distros and repos are kind of independent?  By this I mean that
cobbler doesn't intrinsically know what repo is related to what distro.
You make that association as part of tweaking the profile, right?

> >I've tried to import from the DVD with these, but none of them work:
> >
> >  cobbler import --mirror=root at localhost
>
> I thought you said you just got that working earlier?   Anyhow, import
> also requires a "--mirror-name".

Oops, sorry about that.  Email compose error.  :)  While I was composing
the email, the very act of expressing the problem would sometimes suggest
a possible solution, so I'd go ahead and play with it, and often it did
help.  I was part-way through composing that when I discovered the ssh
magic that allowed me to import the DVD and have cobbler retrieve a copy
for itself.  I obviously didn't proof-read enough before I sent the email.

> The easiest way for this to happen is for you to write up something, put
> it up on the web, and I can link it from the Cobbler webpage.

Groovy.  I'll try to get some time this weekend to put up the sum total of
what I have learnt thus far.

> As with the DVD import, folks using cobbler often think of things I
> don't think of, and it's great to see what the things they want to do
> with provisioning are.

In this case, I want to set up a server for experimentation with various
web CMS and blog technologies.  I decided that Xen would mean the ability
to experiment endlessly and just rebuild when required, and cobbler/koan
would even simplify the rebuild process.

So far I have not been able to provision a Xen guest using the
instructions at http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FedoraXenQuickstartFC6
(although part of the problem may be that I have not set up X, and thus
virt-install is perhaps more fiddly than virt-manager).  I don't want X
because I want a lean environment.

The example given on that page using cobbler/koan looks like they
copy/pasted from the cobbler manual, or something.  They didn't even give
suitable example paths and data.  At the very least I want to provide
enough docs to make that bit work, but I'm happy to go much further.

> Yeah, repos are a relatively new concept, and are used for attaching
> things like "fc6updatesi386" to a profile, so that they can
> automatically install and configure a yum mirror when they provision it,
> as well as using a yum mirror at install time to install packages.

If I add an updates mirror to the profile, will updated packages be
installed instead of the ones from the original DVD tree, where there are
updates available?


On Fri, Feb 23, 2007 at 09:52:13AM -0500, Michael DeHaan wrote:

> >What I normally do in this situation is add a symlink, like
> >
> >/var/www/cobbler/local_mirror/fc6tree -> /opt/dist/fc6 
> 
> Correction:  the way you invoked the import (using the root:localhost@
> syntax), you don't need to do this at all.

Yeah, I worked that out.

> Check to make sure content did get copied to /var/www/cobbler/ks_mirror
> though ... 

Yes, it did copy the files.  Thanks!

Regards, Msquared...