Re: [gentoo-dev] system profiles, stackable profiles, virtuals, and dependencies

[Paul Varner]

On Sun, 2004-07-25 at 11:03, Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
> On Sun, 25 Jul 2004 11:01:15 -0500 Paul Varner
> <gentoo-dev@××××××××××××.org> wrote:
> | As a side note, knowing how to do this also benefits "Enterprise
> | Gentoo".  If defined correctly, it becomes a lot easier to
> | build/rebuild systems containing the same packages on multiple
> | machines.  Since I can now define a desktop profile, a server profile,
> | etc.  If it's configurable enough I could even go so far as to
> | defining the server profile differently based upon if it is a mail
> | server vs. a web server, etc.
>
> Uhm, isn't that why we have /etc/portage/sets/ and GLEP 21?

It's not completely what I'm looking for, although using sets would be
workable.

What I'm trying to accomplish is to explicitly seperate "system"
software from "user" software.  Where system software is the stuff that
I require to be installed on a system.  Typically, I have much stricter
controls on the system stuff versus the user stuff.

I'm still thinking through this stuff, but what I envision is something
similar to the following sets:

system - The set of software required for the machine to operate. This
may be defined differently depending on the function of the machine. 
For example, if virtual/mta is part of the system, I might define
mail-mta/ssmtp to be the MTA for a desktop and mail-mta/postfix to be
the MTA for a server.  The system software for a desktop would probably
include X, while X would not be part of the software for a server. An
emerge <whatever option> system would take care of all of this
software.  A web server would include apache in this list, where a file
server or mail server would not.  Depending upon policy, I would
probably also lock this profile down to specific versions, so that
upgrades to this set of software are not automatic and require me to
manually update the profile to allow the upgrades.

sets (as currently defined in GLEP 21) - The applications that I would
install on a machine for it to do its intended function.  A desktop set
would probably include Open Office, a web server might have the various
mod_* packages, and a mail server would have spamassassin and clamav. 
Depending upon policy, I may or may not care about upgrades.  It might
be locked down tight, allow automatic upgrades as long as it isn't the
next major version, etc.

world - All of the one-off stuff not installed with the system profile
or by the set.  For example: I've decided that I hate KDE/Gnome and I
want to see if Fluxbox meets my needs.  While I'm testing/playing with
it, it would be in the world file and I don't deeply care if it breaks
or is automatically upgraded.  I see the stuff in the world file as
being specific to the machine/users for that machine that wouldn't
neccessarily be applicable to another machine or user.

It is this kind of configurabilty that has drawn me to Gentoo in the
first place.  I've gotten fed up with the RPM hell from other distros
and the inability to define what/how I want a machine to have installed
in an easily repeatable and controllable fashion.  The configuration
capabilities of portage has accomplished much of my goals as a system
administrator and user.  Where I'm at now is what I consider to be the
grey areas of configuration (i.e. my definition of system probably
doesn't match your definition) thus my request for discussion and
education.

Regards,
Paul
-- 
My Gentoo stuff: http://varnerfamily.org/pvarner/gentoo

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