On 11 May 2014 13:24, Tomasz Rybak <[email protected]> wrote:

> Hello.
> This is rather different email; I'd like to see some vision
> of work (or mission?) in debian-cloud.
>
> After finishing porting GCE to bootstrap-vz I'm trying to decide
> what to do next. I do not have main itch to scratch regarding cloud
> as I do not deal with cloud on daily basis.
>
> I still want to use cloud to test my GPGPU packages (the main
> reason I got interested in debian-cloud) but IIRC
> there are still problem with using Debian on cg1.* and g2.*
> Is someone looking at it, or should I try to see what is missing?
>
> When looking at code I can see that we are calling apt-get, apt-key,
> and so on to deal with installing packages. Would it make more sense
> to use python-apt instead, and not parse /etc/apt/sources.list
> ourselves?
>
> I'm also thinking about adding few "cloudy" plugins - e.g. sending
> SNS notification when image is ready, not requiring providing
> AWS key and secret in manifest but using ones on ~/.boto file,
> or even adding support to profiles from ~/.boto.
>
> Or - maybe look at documentation?
>
> Basically I'm looking for something to do ;-) The most important
> is using cloud to test my packages, but I'm not sure if it's doable
> without help from Amazon - or at least knowing why images are not
> starting, or having logs similar to ones that we have from GCE
> serial console.
>
> Best regards.
>
> --
> Tomasz Rybak  GPG/PGP key ID: 2AD5 9860
> Fingerprint A481 824E 7DD3 9C0E C40A  488E C654 FB33 2AD5 9860
> http://member.acm.org/~tomaszrybak
>
>
> I still want to use cloud to test my GPGPU packages (the main reason I
got interested in debian-cloud) but IIRC there are still problem with using
Debian on cg1.* and g2.*
> Is someone looking at it, or should I try to see what is missing?

Yes please! GPU instances have been on my todo list for quite a while, but
other stuff has always gotten in the way, It would be awesome if you could
take a look at it.

> When looking at code I can see that we are calling apt-get, apt-key, and
so on to deal with installing packages.
> Would it make more sense to use python-apt instead, and not parse
/etc/apt/sources.list ourselves?

I... I didn't know that existed. It looks awesome and would save a lot of
code. At first glance I'd say this definitely makes sense!

> I'm also thinking about adding few "cloudy" plugins - e.g. sending SNS
notification when image is ready, not requiring providing
> AWS key and secret in manifest but using ones on ~/.boto file, or even
adding support to profiles from ~/.boto.

I think it depends on the use case whether someone already has a boto
config set up.
If you think it solves a problem that you are not the only one having I'll
merge PR.
Dhananjay raised an interesting
issue<https://github.com/andsens/bootstrap-vz/issues/91>about copying
images, which sparked a longer train of thought for me about
a publishing plugin by setting access rights etc.
I think it would help streamline image generation for quite a few users
that need the images across regions or for different accounts.

Also: GPG signing of images would be an awesome feature especially for
official debian images. You can sign an entire device, but I am not sure
whether the signature breaks when you create a snapshot of an EBS volume
and then verify it using a volume created from that snapshot.

> Or - maybe look at documentation?

The documentation that is missing is mostly for stuff in common/. I'd be
grateful for any help in that area, though I am not sure how much work is
left, all of base/ is done (it would be nice to have it completed though
:-) ).
I am not sure whether it makes sense to document each task, since each one
has a description and is often very small - meaning it's almost easier to
just read the code.

> Basically I'm looking for something to do ;-)
> The most important is using cloud to test my packages, but I'm not sure
if it's doable without help from Amazon -
> or at least knowing why images are not starting, or having logs similar
to ones that we have from GCE serial console.

I feel your pain. I have been trying to get S3 HVM images up and running, a
minute after I launch an instance it shuts itself down again, without any
message...
You do know that there is the "get system log" option in the management
console though, right? That gives you the output of the startup process.

What I could really use some help with is getting a few more Xs in my
booting table. This is what it looks like right now:

X = working
_ = cannot work (grub on unpartitioned volumes)
! = does not work yet
? = untested

boot\type none  msdos gpt
vbox --------------------
grub       _      X    X
ext        X      X    X
ebs----------------------
pvgrub     X      X    X
grub       _      !    !
ext        X      X    !
s3-----------------------
pvgrub     X      !    ?
grub       _      !    !
ext        !      ?    ?

So in essence the following boot combinations need to be fixed:
S3:
  PVM MSDOS+GPT
  HVM (everything)
EBS:
  HVM MSDOS+GPT (for grub)
  HVM GPT (extlinux)

There is of course always the issues
list<https://github.com/andsens/bootstrap-vz/issues?state=open> on
github.
Of special interest is probably the issue about ec2 optimized
networking<https://github.com/andsens/bootstrap-vz/issues/18>.
I have coded the task, but I never got around to testing it. There's also a
problem with the drivers needing to be compiled, installing build-essential
requires a lot of space so we need to uninstall it afterwards. Compiling it
outside of the chroot would require the system to be identical, yadda yadda
and all that jazz. There's definitely some work to be done in that
department.

So, as you can see, there is plenty of stuff to sink your teeth into. Take
your pick!

Kind regards
Anders Ingemann

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