[Ovirt-devel] Re: cobbler import of a repo with only noarch packages in it

[Perry Myers]

Michael DeHaan wrote:
> Perry Myers wrote:
>> I'm trying to do a cobbler import of a directory structure that only 
>> has noarch packages in it.  I'm using the import to create a minimal 
>> pxe boot environment without needing to mirror all of the packages (we 
>> just use external repos for the packages)
>>
>> However, when I try to do a cobbler import of a directory structure 
>> that only contains noarch packages I get the following error:
>>  
>>> + cobbler import --name=Fedora-10 --arch=x86_64 
>>> --path=/var/www/cobbler/ks_mirror/Fedora-10-x86_64
>>> sending incremental file list
>>>
>>> sent 392 bytes  received 16 bytes  816.00 bytes/sec
>>> total size is 134808812  speedup is 330413.75
>>> Given arch (x86_64) not found on imported tree 
>>> /var/www/cobbler/ks_mirror/Fedora-10-x86_64/Packages
>>>
>>> - rsync -a  '/var/www/cobbler/ks_mirror/Fedora-10-x86_64/' 
>>> /var/www/cobbler/ks_mirror/Fedora-10-x86_64 
>>> --exclude-from=/etc/cobbler/rsync.exclude --progress
>>> ---------------- (adding distros)
>>> - found content (breed=redhat) at 
>>> /var/www/cobbler/ks_mirror/Fedora-10-x86_64/images/pxeboot
>>>     
>>
>> I know in the past we were able to import a directory structure with 
>> only noarch packages and still specify an arch (x86_64 or i386) and it 
>> didn't fail like above.  Is this a recent change or restriction?  
>> Should we just add a single arch specific package to the directory 
>> structure to get around this?
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Perry
>>
>>   
> 
> It seems you want "cobbler repo add" and not "import", as you're talking 
> more about a noarch repo than an install tree.   I don't see how you 
> could get an installable distribution with just noarch packages :)
> 
> Import is for install trees, which can also be used as repos, yes.
> 
> But repos are not == install trees.
> 
> Does that make sense or did I miss something?
> 
> If you're doing something really simple "cobbler distro add" alone might 
> suffice, though I'd like to understand a little more about the use case 
> to say for sure.

We wanted to set up a distro and profile for using cobbler to install 
Fedora over pxe but without needing to put any of the rpms in our local 
cobbler install.

i.e. our distro is just the kernel and initrd and the other images to do 
an anaconda install.  But the kickstart uses all remote repos for packages.

That make sense?  It's sort of a niche use case.  We just wanted to 
provide on the oVirt Appliance a minimal cobbler setup so people could 
immediately deploy Fedora on oVirt Guests w/o needing to put the entire 
Fedora DVD into the appliance image.

Perry