Re: Hyper-V support on Debian (Re: Debian is not welcome on Microsoft Azure

[Joshua R. Poulson]

In progress! :)

Thanks, --jrp

On Sat, Jan 23, 2016 at 5:46 PM, Hideki Yamane  wrote:

> On Fri, 16 Oct 2015 05:57:48 -0700
> "Joshua R. Poulson"  wrote:
> > I will certainly update that page when the time comes. We're looking
> > forward to it.
>
>  Yeah, now Debian8.3 includes hyperv-daemons package :)
>  Please look into it.
>
>
> --
> Regards,
>
>  Hideki Yamane henrich @ debian.or.jp/org
>  http://wiki.debian.org/HidekiYamane
>

Hyper-V support on Debian (Re: Debian is not welcome on Microsoft Azure

[Hideki Yamane]

On Fri, 16 Oct 2015 05:57:48 -0700
"Joshua R. Poulson"  wrote:
> I will certainly update that page when the time comes. We're looking
> forward to it.

 Yeah, now Debian8.3 includes hyperv-daemons package :)
 Please look into it.


-- 
Regards,

 Hideki Yamane henrich @ debian.or.jp/org
 http://wiki.debian.org/HidekiYamane

Re: Debian is not welcome on Microsoft Azure

[Arto Jantunen]

On Fri, 4 Dec 2015 18:45:57 +0100, Martin Zobel-Helas wrote:
> On Fri Dec 04, 2015 at 16:27:17 +0800, Shih-Yuan Lee (FourDollars) wrote:
> >My friend from Microsoft shared
> >[1]https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/debian-images-now-available-o
> >n-azure/ to me.
> >Maybe the problem is fixed now.
> 
> Yes, we released the first version of the Azure images on Tuesday.

Is there a specific reason why these images don't have cloud-init
enabled? It seems that most images on Azure, AWS, etc. do enable it.

-- 
Arto Jantunen

Re: Debian is not welcome on Microsoft Azure

[Shih-Yuan Lee (FourDollars)]

My friend from Microsoft shared
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/debian-images-now-available-on-azure/
to me.
Maybe the problem is fixed now.

$4

On Sun, Aug 16, 2015 at 11:41 AM, Dmitry Smirnov  wrote:

> Hi everyone,
>
> I'm struggling to convince a client of mine to use Debian. They already had
> enough troubles with RHEL/CentOS to they are open to the idea -- that's a
> good thing. The bad thing is that they want to use Microsoft Azure (please
> don't ask me why people in the right mind would ever consider using
> proprietary cloud from one of the most unethical companies ever known in
> the
> IT industry).
>
> I found it very disappointing that I had to defend Debian against Ubuntu
> which is stealing our audience by somehow arranging more favourable hosting
> conditions on Azure. I'm not talking about availability of OS images.
> According to "Information for Non-Endorsed Distributions" [1]
>
> "The Azure platform SLA applies to virtual machines running the Linux
> OS
>  only when one of the endorsed distributions [2] is used".
>
> So naturally my client is concerned that by choosing Debian they won't have
> benefits of SLA like they would have if they choose Ubuntu because the
> latter
> is "endorsed".
>
> I'm not sure what can be done about this. Personally I'm reluctant to
> approach Microsoft (I believe DPL or representative of debian-cloud team
> may
> be a better person to do that) and I don't know how to challenge unfair
> endorsement when some parties already formed cartel to suit their
> interests...
>
> Maybe someone could draft a press release to draw attention to the problem,
> if we should be concerned?
>
> [1]:
> https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/virtual-machines-linux-create-upload-vhd-generic/
>
> [2]:
> https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/virtual-machines-linux-endorsed-distributions/
>
> --
> Cheers,
>  Dmitry Smirnov.
>
> ---
>
> It is no use saying, 'We are doing our best.' You have got to succeed
> in doing what is necessary.
> -- Winston Churchill
>

Re: Debian is not welcome on Microsoft Azure

[Ritesh Raj Sarraf]

On Sun, 2015-08-16 at 13:41 +1000, Dmitry Smirnov wrote:
> So naturally my client is concerned that by choosing Debian they
> won't have 
> benefits of SLA like they would have if they choose Ubuntu because
> the latter 
> is "endorsed".
> 
> I'm not sure what can be done about this. Personally I'm reluctant to
> approach Microsoft (I believe DPL or representative of debian-cloud
> team may 
> be a better person to do that) and I don't know how to challenge
> unfair 
> endorsement when some parties already formed cartel to suit their 
> interests...

I don't think there is a straight answer to it.

Support for community distributions is built, either in-house, or
through a consulting company.

Most companies want to partner a product company, set up a MoU, a legal
agreement, and then declare support.

With Debian, this will never apply because Debian does not have a 1-
800-SUPPORT number. Nor can one hold Debian accountable for not
resolving a problem per a defined SLA.


-- 
Given the large number of mailing lists I follow, I request you to CC
me in replies for quicker response



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Re: Debian is not welcome on Microsoft Azure

[Martin Zobel-Helas]

Hi, 

On Fri Dec 04, 2015 at 16:27:17 +0800, Shih-Yuan Lee (FourDollars) wrote:
>My friend from Microsoft shared
>[1]https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/debian-images-now-available-o
>n-azure/ to me.
>Maybe the problem is fixed now.

Yes, we released the first version of the Azure images on Tuesday.

Cheers,
Martin

-- 
Martin Zobel-Helas
Technischer Leiter Betrieb
Tel.:   +49 (2161) 4643-0
Fax:+49 (2161) 4643-100
E-Mail: martin.zobel-he...@credativ.de
pgp fingerprint: 6B18 5642 8E41 EC89 3D5D  BDBB 53B1 AC6D B11B 627B
http://www.credativ.de

credativ GmbH, HRB Mönchengladbach 12080
USt-ID-Nummer: DE204566209
Hohenzollernstr. 133, 41061 Mönchengladbach
Geschäftsführung: Dr. Michael Meskes, Jörg Folz, Sascha Heuer

Re: Debian is not welcome on Microsoft Azure

[Adam D. Barratt]

On Sun, 2015-11-22 at 21:53 +, Ben Hutchings wrote:
> On Sun, 2015-11-22 at 21:34 +, Adam D. Barratt wrote:
> > On Sun, 2015-11-22 at 20:45 +, Ben Hutchings wrote:
> > > On Sun, 2015-10-18 at 12:35 +0900, Hideki Yamane wrote:
> > > > On Sat, 17 Oct 2015 18:54:51 +0100
> > > > Ben Hutchings  wrote:
> > > > > It would be built from the linux-tools source package.  We could
> > > > > cherry-pick more recent changes in tools/hv/ if necessary.
> > > > 
> > > >  Please! :)
> > > 
> > > I've uploaded this to jessie-proposed-updates.
> > 
> > OOI, was that coordinated with anyone on the Release Team beforehand? I
> > don't remember seeing any discussion on debian-release at least.
> 
> I thought I had discussed this, but maybe not, in which case I
> apologise.

I assumed that there would have been a discussion - if only because
adding a binary package to stable is a reasonably exceptional
circumstance - but couldn't find one.

> > Due to the way dak policy queues work, this will not end up in the
> > stable-new queue for SRM review - it will hit NEW due to the new binary
> > package and then go straight to proposed-updates, assuming that
> > ftp-master accept it.
> 
> Would you mind reviewing it and then asking ftp-master to accept or
> reject on the basis of that?

I've added that to my to-do list and asked ftp-master not to accept it
for now.

Regards,

Adam

Re: Debian is not welcome on Microsoft Azure

[Adam D. Barratt]

On Mon, 2015-11-23 at 12:43 -0800, Joshua R. Poulson wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 23, 2015 at 12:02 PM, Adam D.
> Barratt  wrote:
> I assumed that there would have been a discussion - if only
> because
> adding a binary package to stable is a reasonably exceptional
> circumstance - but couldn't find one.
>  
> Why would there be a binary-only package for the hyper-v drivers and
> daemons in the Linux kernel, even for a cherry pick?

What do you mean by "a binary-only package"? (Note that I didn't use
that term in the message to which you replied.)

Regards,

Adam

Re: Debian is not welcome on Microsoft Azure

[Joshua R. Poulson]

On Mon, Nov 23, 2015 at 12:02 PM, Adam D. Barratt 
 wrote:

> I assumed that there would have been a discussion - if only because
> adding a binary package to stable is a reasonably exceptional
> circumstance - but couldn't find one.


Why would there be a binary-only package for the hyper-v drivers and
daemons in the Linux kernel, even for a cherry pick?

Thanks, --jrp

Re: Debian is not welcome on Microsoft Azure

[Joshua R. Poulson]

Sorry, I assume you meant binary-only in context. It was certainly not our
intent to ask for something like that.

Sorry again, --jrp

On Mon, Nov 23, 2015 at 12:56 PM, Adam D. Barratt 
wrote:

> On Mon, 2015-11-23 at 12:43 -0800, Joshua R. Poulson wrote:
> > On Mon, Nov 23, 2015 at 12:02 PM, Adam D.
> > Barratt  wrote:
> > I assumed that there would have been a discussion - if only
> > because
> > adding a binary package to stable is a reasonably exceptional
> > circumstance - but couldn't find one.
> >
> > Why would there be a binary-only package for the hyper-v drivers and
> > daemons in the Linux kernel, even for a cherry pick?
>
> What do you mean by "a binary-only package"? (Note that I didn't use
> that term in the message to which you replied.)
>
> Regards,
>
> Adam
>
>
>

Re: Debian is not welcome on Microsoft Azure

[Adam D. Barratt]

On Mon, 2015-11-23 at 13:09 -0800, Joshua R. Poulson wrote:
> Sorry, I assume you meant binary-only in context. It was certainly not
> our intent to ask for something like that.

Ah. I'm assuming that there's been a confusion of terminology here. A
binary package in this context is a package that a user can install
(a .deb file), which is built from a source package.

Regards,

Adam

Re: Debian is not welcome on Microsoft Azure

[Ben Hutchings]

On Sun, 2015-10-18 at 12:35 +0900, Hideki Yamane wrote:
> On Sat, 17 Oct 2015 18:54:51 +0100
> Ben Hutchings  wrote:
> > It would be built from the linux-tools source package.  We could
> > cherry-pick more recent changes in tools/hv/ if necessary.
> 
>  Please! :)

I've uploaded this to jessie-proposed-updates.

Ben.

-- 
Ben Hutchings
Life would be so much easier if we could look at the source code.


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Re: Debian is not welcome on Microsoft Azure

[Adam D. Barratt]

On Sun, 2015-11-22 at 20:45 +, Ben Hutchings wrote:
> On Sun, 2015-10-18 at 12:35 +0900, Hideki Yamane wrote:
> > On Sat, 17 Oct 2015 18:54:51 +0100
> > Ben Hutchings  wrote:
> > > It would be built from the linux-tools source package.  We could
> > > cherry-pick more recent changes in tools/hv/ if necessary.
> > 
> >  Please! :)
> 
> I've uploaded this to jessie-proposed-updates.

OOI, was that coordinated with anyone on the Release Team beforehand? I
don't remember seeing any discussion on debian-release at least.

Due to the way dak policy queues work, this will not end up in the
stable-new queue for SRM review - it will hit NEW due to the new binary
package and then go straight to proposed-updates, assuming that
ftp-master accept it.

Regards,

Adam

Re: Debian is not welcome on Microsoft Azure

[Ben Hutchings]

On Sun, 2015-11-22 at 21:34 +, Adam D. Barratt wrote:
> On Sun, 2015-11-22 at 20:45 +, Ben Hutchings wrote:
> > On Sun, 2015-10-18 at 12:35 +0900, Hideki Yamane wrote:
> > > On Sat, 17 Oct 2015 18:54:51 +0100
> > > Ben Hutchings  wrote:
> > > > It would be built from the linux-tools source package.  We could
> > > > cherry-pick more recent changes in tools/hv/ if necessary.
> > > 
> > >  Please! :)
> > 
> > I've uploaded this to jessie-proposed-updates.
> 
> OOI, was that coordinated with anyone on the Release Team beforehand? I
> don't remember seeing any discussion on debian-release at least.

I thought I had discussed this, but maybe not, in which case I
apologise.

> Due to the way dak policy queues work, this will not end up in the
> stable-new queue for SRM review - it will hit NEW due to the new binary
> package and then go straight to proposed-updates, assuming that
> ftp-master accept it.

Would you mind reviewing it and then asking ftp-master to accept or
reject on the basis of that?

The full source and binaries can be found in:
https://people.debian.org/~benh/packages/jessie-pu/

Ben.

-- 
Ben Hutchings
Life would be so much easier if we could look at the source code.

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Re: Debian is not welcome on Microsoft Azure

[Hideki Yamane]

On Sat, 17 Oct 2015 18:54:51 +0100
Ben Hutchings  wrote:
> It would be built from the linux-tools source package.  We could
> cherry-pick more recent changes in tools/hv/ if necessary.

 Please! :)


-- 
Regards,

 Hideki Yamane henrich @ debian.or.jp/org
 http://wiki.debian.org/HidekiYamane

Re: Debian is not welcome on Microsoft Azure

[Florian Weimer]

* Hideki Yamane:

>  So I thinks we should care such situations, and try to improve it
>  by adding hyperv-daemons package to stable (it means for production
>  system).

Sure.  The first step is to determine if we want to build this from
the kernel source package (as a new binary package), or if we want to
extract the sources and add a new source package to stable.  This has
to be coordinated with the kernel team, and someone who is familiar
with Hyper-V needs check if we can use the old tools from the jessie
kernel.

I don't see anyone on this thread who opposes to such a change in
principle, so it's just stuck until someone does the necessary work
(who also has access to the required infrastructure to test things).

Florian

Re: Debian is not welcome on Microsoft Azure

[Ben Hutchings]

On Sat, 2015-10-17 at 13:43 +0200, Florian Weimer wrote:
> * Hideki Yamane:
> 
> >  So I thinks we should care such situations, and try to improve it
> >  by adding hyperv-daemons package to stable (it means for
> > production
> >  system).
> 
> Sure.  The first step is to determine if we want to build this from
> the kernel source package (as a new binary package), or if we want to
> extract the sources and add a new source package to stable.  This has
> to be coordinated with the kernel team, and someone who is familiar
> with Hyper-V needs check if we can use the old tools from the jessie
> kernel.

It would be built from the linux-tools source package.  We could
cherry-pick more recent changes in tools/hv/ if necessary.

Ben.

> I don't see anyone on this thread who opposes to such a change in
> principle, so it's just stuck until someone does the necessary work
> (who also has access to the required infrastructure to test things).

-- 
Ben Hutchings
Who are all these weirdos? - David Bowie, reading IRC for the first time


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Re: Debian is not welcome on Microsoft Azure

[Hideki Yamane]

Hi,

On Sat, 22 Aug 2015 21:58:24 +0200
Ben Hutchings  wrote:
> >  I glad to hear hyperv-daemons package would be backported to Jessie :)
> >  And what is needed to do so? Of course, I would help if I can.
> 
> I don't know that it will, but if it's critical enough for running
> properly on Hyper-V or specifically Azure then I think it would be
> approved for a stable update to jessie.
 
 Technically, Debian can run on Hyper-V without hyperv-daemons package.
 But it lucks important features like volume shadow copy service (VSS).

 And, about hyperv-daemons package is same situation as Azure, if Microsoft
 doesn't officially endorse Debian as support platform because of not
 providing hyperv-daemons package, many managers/clients doesn't allow
 to use Debian as a part of their systems due to luck of support that 
 compared to other distributions.

 It's sad, really sad.

 So I thinks we should care such situations, and try to improve it by adding
 hyperv-daemons package to stable (it means for production system).


 Adding hyperv-daemon package to stable is

 - it can solve political issue (support/endorse)
 - it improve managing VMs backup operation (at least)
 - no harm for existing packages/systems
 - low cost to backport it

 Please think about it.

 If we can add it to stable, then I'll ask microsoft to update their documents
 https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn614985.aspx


> It is available in jessie-backports already.

 Great :)


-- 
Regards,

 Hideki Yamane henrich @ debian.or.jp/org
 http://wiki.debian.org/HidekiYamane

Re: Debian is not welcome on Microsoft Azure

[Joshua R. Poulson]

On Thu, Oct 15, 2015 at 11:56 PM, Hideki Yamane 
wrote:

>  If we can add it to stable, then I'll ask microsoft to update their
> documents
>  https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn614985.aspx


I will certainly update that page when the time comes. We're looking
forward to it.

Thanks, --jrp

Re: Debian is not welcome on Microsoft Azure

[Bernd Zeimetz]

On 08/16/2015 01:22 PM, Michael Meskes wrote:
 Interesting, thanks. As for The Microsoft Azure Linux Agent [1], it is 
 Apache-2.0 licensed and should be trivially package-able...

 [1]: https://github.com/Azure/WALinuxAgent
 
 It's been in Debian for years. Recently it was updated to the latest
 version. Please check https://packages.qa.debian.org/w/waagent.html

... it just never made it into a stable release

-- 
 Bernd ZeimetzDebian GNU/Linux Developer
 http://bzed.dehttp://www.debian.org
 GPG Fingerprint: ECA1 E3F2 8E11 2432 D485  DD95 EB36 171A 6FF9 435F

Re: Debian is not welcome on Microsoft Azure

[Ben Hutchings]

On Sun, 2015-08-16 at 21:49 +0200, Hideki Yamane wrote:
 On Sun, 16 Aug 2015 10:43:17 +0200
 Ben Hutchings b...@decadent.org.uk wrote:
  They are now packaged in unstable (hyperv-daemons built from linux
  -tools source), and could possible be backported to jessie if they are
  that important.  However, I think some more work is needed to integrate
  them properly.
 
  I glad to hear hyperv-daemons package would be backported to Jessie :)
  And what is needed to do so? Of course, I would help if I can.

I don't know that it will, but if it's critical enough for running
properly on Hyper-V or specifically Azure then I think it would be
approved for a stable update to jessie.

It is available in jessie-backports already.

Ben.

-- 
Ben Hutchings
Theory and practice are closer in theory than in practice.
- John Levine, moderator of comp.compilers



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Re: Debian is not welcome on Microsoft Azure

[Marcin Kulisz]

On 2015-08-16 04:45:46, Joshua R. Poulson wrote:
 Specifically, due to the efforts of Credativ, Debian will soon become an
 endorsed distribution available from the image gallery on Azure. There will
 be a DebConf 15 QA tomorrow on this topic. You can also chat us up at DebConf
 this week.

Hi guys,

we had kinda QA in relation to this topic and the conclusion is that we will
have Debian on Azure and on other 'clouds', but ...

1. It's not going to be called 'Official Debian' but something similar, probably
  something like 'Official Debian Image for Azure' (or whatever cloud provider
  you want to have in this place)
2. To achieve 1 we need to specify set of tests which image will have to pass
  to be called as the above.
3. Cloud provider if want to certify our image probably (according to MS guys
  for sure) will want to run some test on their own but for us (Debian) to 
accept
  that and to give Debian name to it, they will be obliged to publish those
  tests (ideally as deb packages) for public/community scrutiny and eventual
  testing if one wish to do so.

So now we're in the point when we have to specify what tests should run, so we 
as
a Debian could rubber stamp it as Debian 'certified'.

If you have idea how those tests should (more/less) looks like and what should
we test to have standardised test suite for images please add them into wiki:
https://wiki.debian.org/Testing%20Debian%20Cloud%20Images and ideally write
some code for doing so. (if repo for tests will be needed pls let us know on
debian-cl...@lists.debian.org so we will organize it)
-- 

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Re: Debian is not welcome on Microsoft Azure

[Gunnar Wolf]

Dmitry Smirnov dijo [Sun, Aug 16, 2015 at 01:41:40PM +1000]:
 Hi everyone,
 
 I'm struggling to convince a client of mine to use Debian. They already had 
 enough troubles with RHEL/CentOS to they are open to the idea -- that's a 
 good thing. The bad thing is that they want to use Microsoft Azure (please 
 don't ask me why people in the right mind would ever consider using 
 proprietary cloud from one of the most unethical companies ever known in the 
 IT industry).
 
 I found it very disappointing that I had to defend Debian against Ubuntu  
 which is stealing our audience by somehow arranging more favourable hosting 
 conditions on Azure. I'm not talking about availability of OS images. 
 According to Information for Non-Endorsed Distributions [1] 
 
 The Azure platform SLA applies to virtual machines running the Linux OS
  only when one of the endorsed distributions [2] is used.
 (...)

Hi,

I'm bringing this discussion to José Miguel Parrella bureado, who
besides being a Debian Developer works as Open Source Strategist for
Emerging Markets in Latin America in Microsoft. I know there have
been many interesting answers to your question, but I'm sure he will
have some further insight.


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RE: Debian is not welcome on Microsoft Azure

[Jose Miguel Parrella Romero]

Hello,
 
 Dmitry Smirnov dijo [Sun, Aug 16, 2015 at 01:41:40PM +1000]:
 I found it very disappointing that I had to defend Debian against Ubuntu 
 which is stealing our audience by somehow arranging more favourable hosting 
 conditions on Azure. I'm not talking about availability of OS images. 
 According to Information for Non-Endorsed Distributions [1] 

I agree you shouldn't be in this position if you have both decided on Debian, 
Dmitry. I'll connect with you to see if I can help.


 I'm bringing this discussion to José Miguel Parrella bureado, who
 besides being a Debian Developer works as Open Source Strategist for
 Emerging Markets in Latin America in Microsoft. I know there have
 been many interesting answers to your question, but I'm sure he will
 have some further insight.


Josh commented on this already but for those of you not attending DebConf both 
Michael and Josh mentioned today that work is in progress to bring a Debian 
image to Azure soon.  The DebConf target unfortunately slipped but Fall 2015 is 
the new target. There are no technical reasons blocking Debian from working on 
Azure [1]. There are Debian customers in Azure today, and some DDs including 
henrich and waldi have been working in packaging, test builds as well as 
providing (very valuable) input both for Hyper-V as well as for Azure.


bureado


[1] https://vmdepot.msopentech.com/List/Index?sort=Featuredsearch=debian   
  

Re: Debian is not welcome on Microsoft Azure

[Michael Meskes]

 Maybe someone could draft a press release to draw attention to the problem, 
 if we should be concerned?

Or maybe we should just wait a little bit longer until the problem is
fixed. As it happens work is already underway as you can see here:
http://www.credativ.de/blog/debian-images-f%C3%BCr-microsoft-azure

Sorry, only in German, English text is forthcoming.

Also, for those of you at Debconf, feel free to talk to credativ or
Microsoft people at the conference if you want to learn more. There
should be some event as well, but since I'm not yet on-site I cannot
tell when and where. Maybe somebody who know could chime in.

Michael
-- 
Michael Meskes
Michael at Fam-Meskes dot De, Michael at Meskes dot (De|Com|Net|Org)
Meskes at (Debian|Postgresql) dot Org
Jabber: michael.meskes at gmail dot com
VfL Borussia! Força Barça! Go SF 49ers! Use Debian GNU/Linux, PostgreSQL

Re: Debian is not welcome on Microsoft Azure

[Martin Zobel-Helas]

Hi, 

On Sun Aug 16, 2015 at 09:35:37 +0200, Michael Meskes wrote:
  Maybe someone could draft a press release to draw attention to the problem, 
  if we should be concerned?
 
 Or maybe we should just wait a little bit longer until the problem is
 fixed. As it happens work is already underway as you can see here:
 http://www.credativ.de/blog/debian-images-f%C3%BCr-microsoft-azure
 
 Sorry, only in German, English text is forthcoming.
 
 Also, for those of you at Debconf, feel free to talk to credativ or
 Microsoft people at the conference if you want to learn more. There
 should be some event as well, but since I'm not yet on-site I cannot
 tell when and where. Maybe somebody who know could chime in.
 

I intend to do a short live demo about the work credativ has done so
far. No date and place settled yet, though.

Cheers,
Martin
-- 
 Martin Zobel-Helas zo...@debian.orgDebian System Administrator
 Debian  GNU/Linux Developer   Debian Listmaster
 http://about.me/zobel   Debian Webmaster
 GPG Fingerprint:  6B18 5642 8E41 EC89 3D5D  BDBB 53B1 AC6D B11B 627B 

Re: Debian is not welcome on Microsoft Azure

[Ben Hutchings]

On Sun, 2015-08-16 at 13:41 +1000, Dmitry Smirnov wrote:
[...]
 I found it very disappointing that I had to defend Debian against Ubuntu  
 which is stealing our audience by somehow arranging more favourable hosting 
 conditions on Azure. I'm not talking about availability of OS images. 
 According to Information for Non-Endorsed Distributions [1] 
 
 The Azure platform SLA applies to virtual machines running the Linux OS
  only when one of the endorsed distributions [2] is used.
 
 So naturally my client is concerned that by choosing Debian they won't have 
 benefits of SLA like they would have if they choose Ubuntu because the latter 
 is endorsed.
[...]

No stable release of Debian includes the Hyper-V guest agents, which I
believe are strongly recommended.

They are now packaged in unstable (hyperv-daemons built from linux
-tools source), and could possible be backported to jessie if they are
that important.  However, I think some more work is needed to integrate
them properly.

Ben.

-- 
Ben Hutchings
[W]e found...that it wasn't as easy to get programs right as we had thought.
... I realized that a large part of my life from then on was going to be spent
in finding mistakes in my own programs. - Maurice Wilkes, 1949



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Re: Debian is not welcome on Microsoft Azure

[Marco d'Itri]

On Aug 16, Russ Allbery r...@debian.org wrote:

 This is sadly very typical of any sort of vendor support.  I see this all
 the time for complex software stacks with support contracts (you can only
 ask them for support if you run it all on some OS that they support) or
 for anything that requires hardware support or drivers.  It's basically
Indeed. Try to use Debian with fibre channel hardware...

-- 
ciao,
Marco


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Re: Debian is not welcome on Microsoft Azure

[Michael Meskes]

 I hope Debian have some future on Azure however blog mention only native 
 Debian images (that shouldn't be too hard to prepare anyway) but not SLA...

I'm pretty sure there'll be some SLA offering.

Michael

-- 
Michael Meskes
Michael at Fam-Meskes dot De, Michael at Meskes dot (De|Com|Net|Org)
Meskes at (Debian|Postgresql) dot Org
Jabber: michael.meskes at gmail dot com
VfL Borussia! Força Barça! Go SF 49ers! Use Debian GNU/Linux, PostgreSQL



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Re: Debian is not welcome on Microsoft Azure

[Joshua R. Poulson]

Specifically, due to the efforts of Credativ, Debian will soon become an
endorsed distribution available from the image gallery on Azure. There
will be a DebConf 15 QA tomorrow on this topic. You can also chat us up at
DebConf this week.

--jrp
Linux Integration Services Program Manager, Open Source Technology Center,
Microsoft

Re: Debian is not welcome on Microsoft Azure

[Henrique de Moraes Holschuh]

On Sun, Aug 16, 2015, at 05:43, Ben Hutchings wrote:
 On Sun, 2015-08-16 at 13:41 +1000, Dmitry Smirnov wrote:
 [...]
  I found it very disappointing that I had to defend Debian against Ubuntu  
  which is stealing our audience by somehow arranging more favourable hosting 
  conditions on Azure. I'm not talking about availability of OS images. 
  According to Information for Non-Endorsed Distributions [1] 
  
  The Azure platform SLA applies to virtual machines running the Linux OS
   only when one of the endorsed distributions [2] is used.
  
  So naturally my client is concerned that by choosing Debian they won't have 
  benefits of SLA like they would have if they choose Ubuntu because the 
  latter 
  is endorsed.
 [...]
 
 No stable release of Debian includes the Hyper-V guest agents, which I
 believe are strongly recommended.

Not only that, but we would also likely have to pay attention to hv
support kernel-side (to backport important fixes and features that did
not make it to the stable kernels for whatever reason).

Someone that really cares about this should step up and claim the
debian-on-hv hat ;-)

-- 
  One disk to rule them all, One disk to find them. One disk to bring
  them all and in the darkness grind them. In the Land of Redmond
  where the shadows lie. -- The Silicon Valley Tarot
  Henrique de Moraes Holschuh h...@debian.org

Re: Debian is not welcome on Microsoft Azure

[Dmitry Smirnov]

On Sunday 16 August 2015 09:35:37 Michael Meskes wrote:
 Or maybe we should just wait a little bit longer until the problem is
 fixed. As it happens work is already underway as you can see here:
 http://www.credativ.de/blog/debian-images-f%C3%BCr-microsoft-azure
 
I hope Debian have some future on Azure however blog mention only native 
Debian images (that shouldn't be too hard to prepare anyway) but not SLA...

There are some Wheezy (but not Jessie) images mentioned on

https://wiki.debian.org/Cloud/WindowsAzureImage

-- 
Best wishes,
 Dmitry Smirnov.

---

Continuous effort - not strength or intelligence - is the key to unlocking
our potential.
-- Winston Churchill


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Re: Debian is not welcome on Microsoft Azure

[Dmitry Smirnov]

On Sunday 16 August 2015 10:43:17 Ben Hutchings wrote:
 No stable release of Debian includes the Hyper-V guest agents, which I
 believe are strongly recommended.
 
 They are now packaged in unstable (hyperv-daemons built from linux
 -tools source), and could possible be backported to jessie if they are
 that important.  However, I think some more work is needed to integrate
 them properly.

Interesting, thanks. As for The Microsoft Azure Linux Agent [1], it is 
Apache-2.0 licensed and should be trivially package-able...

[1]: https://github.com/Azure/WALinuxAgent

-- 
Best wishes,
 Dmitry Smirnov.

---

It is impossible to imagine Goethe or Beethoven being good at billiards
or golf.
-- H. L. Mencken


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Re: Debian is not welcome on Microsoft Azure

[Dmitry Smirnov]

On Saturday 15 August 2015 21:52:19 Russ Allbery wrote:
 It's possible, I suppose, that money has changed hands to get Microsoft to
 endorse Ubuntu, but I think it's equally likely that they just looked at
 the enterprise Linux space to see what the most popular distributions
 commercial are, and then some other companies reached out to them to see
 what was involved in getting on the list.

You are right, either could be the case. I believe it would be unfortunate if 
we compete for privileged hosting terms with other distros...


 Note that one thing in common with all of the supported distributions is
 that there is a company behind it.  (CentOS is on there only because
 OpenLogic put themselves on the hook for it.)

I thought CentOS is there because there is no effort to support it since (as 
RHEL derivative) CentOS promises binary compatibility with RHEL...


 Debian is notoriously hard
 for companies to actually contact because we don't actually exist as a
 formal organization, and there isn't a strategic partnerships coordinator
 who is calling their counterpart at Microsoft and chatting about things
 like this.  I suspect all of those companies have at least one employee
 whose job it is to set up things like this.  It's possible we're not there
 just because we haven't asked in that sort of a way, or don't sufficiently
 exist to be able to ask in the way that they would expect.

Right. If one company is enough to take responsibility for liaison with one 
cloud provider then hopefully one of our consultants [1] could be of help...

[1]: https://www.debian.org/consultants/


 They don't list Arch or Gentoo or quite a few other
 distributions either; it's not like they're singling out Debian in
 particular.  They don't list any community-maintained distributions, only
 ones with companies behind them.

It is true but neither size of the audience of Arch and Gentoo combined nor 
importance of those projects come close to our exposure. To me it is more 
like as if they overlooked RHEL but included CentOS...

Intentionally or not, it is harmful when our own derivative is stepping on 
our toes like this...

 
 This sort of limited support list (however constructed, possibly via
 business deals with money involved) is pretty much universal in the
 industry.

Sigh... :(


 If, like me, you're not a big fan of capitalism in general,
 you're probably not a big fan of this manifestation of it, but it's
 certainly not illegal and, by capitalism rules, not unethical.

I recognise lack of ethics in absence of vendor-neutrality (when they try to 
influence what should be running in rented VMs) and in designing conditions 
allowing them to avoid meeting their own SLA under some circumstances...

-- 
Regards,
 Dmitry Smirnov.

---

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.


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Re: Debian is not welcome on Microsoft Azure

[Michael Meskes]

 Interesting, thanks. As for The Microsoft Azure Linux Agent [1], it is 
 Apache-2.0 licensed and should be trivially package-able...
 
 [1]: https://github.com/Azure/WALinuxAgent

It's been in Debian for years. Recently it was updated to the latest
version. Please check https://packages.qa.debian.org/w/waagent.html

Michael
-- 
Michael Meskes
Michael at Fam-Meskes dot De, Michael at Meskes dot (De|Com|Net|Org)
Meskes at (Debian|Postgresql) dot Org
Jabber: michael.meskes at gmail dot com
VfL Borussia! Força Barça! Go SF 49ers! Use Debian GNU/Linux, PostgreSQL

Re: Debian is not welcome on Microsoft Azure

[Dmitry Smirnov]

On Sunday 16 August 2015 04:45:46 Joshua R. Poulson wrote:
 Specifically, due to the efforts of Credativ, Debian will soon become an
 endorsed distribution available from the image gallery on Azure.

This will be a good news. I'm looking forward to see it happen.
Thank you, Joshua.

-- 
Regards,
 Dmitry Smirnov.

---

Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.
-- H. L. Mencken


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Re: Debian is not welcome on Microsoft Azure

[Martin Zobel-Helas]

Hi, 

On Sun Aug 16, 2015 at 11:18:55 +0200, Martin Zobel-Helas wrote:
 Hi, 
 
 On Sun Aug 16, 2015 at 09:35:37 +0200, Michael Meskes wrote:
   Maybe someone could draft a press release to draw attention to the 
   problem, 
   if we should be concerned?
  
  Or maybe we should just wait a little bit longer until the problem is
  fixed. As it happens work is already underway as you can see here:
  http://www.credativ.de/blog/debian-images-f%C3%BCr-microsoft-azure
  
  Sorry, only in German, English text is forthcoming.
  
  Also, for those of you at Debconf, feel free to talk to credativ or
  Microsoft people at the conference if you want to learn more. There
  should be some event as well, but since I'm not yet on-site I cannot
  tell when and where. Maybe somebody who know could chime in.
  
 
 I intend to do a short live demo about the work credativ has done so
 far. No date and place settled yet, though.

There will be a QA session in room Vienna (Wien) tomorrow at 4 pm.

https://summit.debconf.org/debconf15/meeting/365/debian-on-microsoft-azure-qa/


Cheers,
Martin

-- 
 Martin Zobel-Helas zo...@debian.orgDebian System Administrator
 Debian  GNU/Linux Developer   Debian Listmaster
 http://about.me/zobel   Debian Webmaster
 GPG Fingerprint:  6B18 5642 8E41 EC89 3D5D  BDBB 53B1 AC6D B11B 627B 

Re: Debian is not welcome on Microsoft Azure

[Hideki Yamane]

On Sun, 16 Aug 2015 10:43:17 +0200
Ben Hutchings b...@decadent.org.uk wrote:
 They are now packaged in unstable (hyperv-daemons built from linux
 -tools source), and could possible be backported to jessie if they are
 that important.  However, I think some more work is needed to integrate
 them properly.

 I glad to hear hyperv-daemons package would be backported to Jessie :)
 And what is needed to do so? Of course, I would help if I can.

-- 
Hideki Yamane henr...@iijmio-mail.jp

Re: Debian is not welcome on Microsoft Azure

[Russ Allbery]

Dmitry Smirnov only...@debian.org writes:

 I found it very disappointing that I had to defend Debian against Ubuntu  
 which is stealing our audience by somehow arranging more favourable hosting 
 conditions on Azure. I'm not talking about availability of OS images. 
 According to Information for Non-Endorsed Distributions [1] 

 The Azure platform SLA applies to virtual machines running the Linux OS
  only when one of the endorsed distributions [2] is used.

 So naturally my client is concerned that by choosing Debian they won't have 
 benefits of SLA like they would have if they choose Ubuntu because the latter 
 is endorsed.

I suspect you're attributing to malice what's probably due to other
causes.  My bet is that their endorsed list is the stuff that either
they've actually tested or that their partners are testing in some
formal way, and they're not going to test every Linux distribution, and
they don't guarantee that the ones they haven't tested will work.

This is sadly very typical of any sort of vendor support.  I see this all
the time for complex software stacks with support contracts (you can only
ask them for support if you run it all on some OS that they support) or
for anything that requires hardware support or drivers.  It's basically
universal in the world of proprietary software.

It's possible, I suppose, that money has changed hands to get Microsoft to
endorse Ubuntu, but I think it's equally likely that they just looked at
the enterprise Linux space to see what the most popular distributions
commercial are, and then some other companies reached out to them to see
what was involved in getting on the list.

Note that one thing in common with all of the supported distributions is
that there is a company behind it.  (CentOS is on there only because
OpenLogic put themselves on the hook for it.)  Debian is notoriously hard
for companies to actually contact because we don't actually exist as a
formal organization, and there isn't a strategic partnerships coordinator
who is calling their counterpart at Microsoft and chatting about things
like this.  I suspect all of those companies have at least one employee
whose job it is to set up things like this.  It's possible we're not there
just because we haven't asked in that sort of a way, or don't sufficiently
exist to be able to ask in the way that they would expect.

 Maybe someone could draft a press release to draw attention to the
 problem, if we should be concerned?

I think it would be tricky to draft a press release that didn't make us
sound faintly silly.  They don't list Arch or Gentoo or quite a few other
distributions either; it's not like they're singling out Debian in
particular.  They don't list any community-maintained distributions, only
ones with companies behind them.

This sort of limited support list (however constructed, possibly via
business deals with money involved) is pretty much universal in the
industry.  If, like me, you're not a big fan of capitalism in general,
you're probably not a big fan of this manifestation of it, but it's
certainly not illegal and, by capitalism rules, not unethical.

-- 
Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org)   http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/