RFC: Disk specification by classes/tags

[C. Petro]

> I know we can already hardcode which disk to use (--ondisk=sda)

When building a kickstart configuration for two or more types of
machines sometimes that *doesn't* work.

Last time I went through that I had Dell R620XDs (IIRC) and these
awful SuperMicro boxes that had a windows only raid controller and I
had to scriptomagically bang sdb and sdc together to get a predictable
MD0. The sda device was present, but didn't work.

What would be *really* cool is a couple of built in tags (@local,
@remote, etc.) but also a way to define NEW tags on the fly--for
example having a PRE script that creates an MD device then tags that
as @fred or one that goes looking for a drive with particular
characteristics (say for example I have a HP DL380G8 with 3 onboard
RAID controllers and want to strip my data RAID across them, I can
look for the first drive on each controller and make them a RAID 1,
then the next X drives as a PV, and the last Y drives as a second PV
etc..

> but I'd like to be able to tell kickstart to use only the 1st disk found, or at
least confine the kickstart to 1 drive.

On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 6:31 PM, Steve Rikli <sr at genyosha.net> wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 03:44:09PM -0400, David Lehman wrote:
>>
>> I work on blivet, which is the storage management backend for
>> anaconda/kickstart. I'm working on a feature that was inspired by
>> discussion on this list: specification of disks by class/tag.
>> Eventually, I imagine this capability will be plumbed through kickstart
>> and anaconda.
>>
>> In the interest of determining how much machinery I should build into
>> this, I'm soliciting use-cases for this type of filtering. Here's what
>> I have so far:
>>
>> # do autopart, but only use local drives
>> ignoredisk --onlyuse=@local
>> autopart
>>
>> # make sure /boot goes on a local drive
>> part /boot??--ondisk=@local
>>
>> # make sure a pv that backs an lvm cache lv goes on the ssd
>> part pv.cache.0 --fstype=lvmpv --size=4096 --grow --ondisk=@ssd
>>
>> # put a data volume on a shared SAN volume
>> part /shared --size=100000 --grow --ondisk=@remote
>>
>>
>> What kinds of restrictions do you wish you could easily place on disk
>> sets in your kickstart configurations?
>
> I know we can already hardcode which disk to use (--ondisk=sda) but I'd
> like to be able to tell kickstart to use only the 1st disk found, or at
> least confine the kickstart to 1 drive.
>
> You're in the same ballpark with @local (+ @<disktype> maybe?) but e.g.
> if I have a pair of SSD and I want the 2nd one to be used for non-sysdisk
> duties, today I think I have to use disk names.
>
> Thanks for looking into this sort of enhancement.  Even just the above
> ideas are potentially helpful.
>
> sr.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Kickstart-list mailing list
> Kickstart-list at redhat.com
> https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/kickstart-list