[Engine-devel] [Users] [Feedback required][host-deploy] Fedora-19 misses tar at minimal setup

[Itamar Heim]

On 07/30/2013 04:07 PM, Yedidyah Bar David wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: alonbl at redhat.com, at at redhat.com, "Alon Bar-Lev" <redhat.com at redhat.com>
>> Sent: Monday, July 29, 2013 10:15:33 AM
>> Subject: [Engine-devel] [Users] [Feedback required][host-deploy]	Fedora-19 misses tar at minimal setup
>>
> [snip]
>>
>> for some reason fedora-18/19 got tar out of base system, so we are
>> forced to find some solution, although manual configuration is required
>> anyway (repository, networking etc...).
>>
>> there was attempt to use python tar module, however this module has a
>> bug when last block is empty, so it is not suitable for usage.
>>
>> cpio is alternative for fedora, however it is rightfully missing from
>> other distributions as it is much less used. as we do not support hosts
>> using different distributions, we are ok now.
>>
>> in future, we can use python self extract script, work already performed
>> at: I1e5ddab9ae87979da7d7296c4f3c7ef08e21e903 at the price of
>> complexity.
>>
>> Change-Id: I1386e7d688a9ec7e28519fb407478fd17cbab4ca
>> Signed-off-by: Alon Bar-Lev <alonbl at redhat.com>
>>
>> [1] http://gerrit.ovirt.org/#/c/17396/
>>
>
> FWIW:
>
> I personally find it least ugly to choose neither cpio nor pyar, and
> require installing tar.

I personally always install fedora/rhel at minimal install level when 
using it for oVirt, so i can appreciate the pain in failing on this.
(i.e., my success criteria for testing things is "i don't need to change 
anything to use it out of the box with minimal install").

>
> Besides Ohad's case in the bug, do we know about real problems?

we fixed missing deps in the past around issues with minimal install. 
this is a chicken and an egg one, still i think it should be fixed.

> Is there a specific requirement to be able to run a node on a minimal
> installation of $distro? Some other real complications this might cause?

I'd say yes...

>
> Anyway, if we do have to choose, I'd go with pyar and not cpio. cpio is
> used by rpm and initramfs, but other than that it's not very common (? IMHO),
> and if we go with it we might face ourselves in the same situation at some
> later point in time - that cpio will not be included in a minimal installation
> of $distro.
>
> Best regards,
>

did we solve the issue with pyar?
(i don't have a preference between the two, i just want/expect things to 
work out of the box without RTFM)