Subject: [alpine-devel] alpine 2.6.0_rc1 is out - what do do with scst and vserver isos

From: Natanael Copa <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 1 May 2013 14:29:05 +0200

Hi,

I have uploaded the 2.6.0_rc1 isos.

I wonder if we can kill the alpine-scst iso now?

What do we do with alpine-vserver isos?

Alternatives:
1) we kill it and tell users to use LXC
2) we ship it with an old kernel
  2.1) downgrade to LTS 3.4.y
  2.2) do nothing, keep the current, outdated 3.6.y
  2.3) we try port vserver to 3.9 or same as grsec.

Personally, I think I would prefer alternative 2.1. We still use
vserver in production (build servers) and we don't have any good
migration plan for vserver -> LXC.

I also don't think there are many vserver users that wants the new
fancy stuff in newer kernels, so i think reverting to an older 3.4.y
kernel might work. Sticking to LTS kernels saves us for much work.

What do you think?

-nc

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From: Nathan Angelacos <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 01 May 2013 07:52:46 -0700

> kernel might work. Sticking to LTS kernels saves us for much work.

Since I'm not doing the work... 2.1 is fine with me; otherwise I'd vote
for 1

LXC is in mainline kernel
LXC works better (imho) for the kinds of things we use vserver for
But it is work to move our production servers off of vserver

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From: Leonardo Arena <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 01 May 2013 14:43:11 +0200

> I wonder if we can kill the alpine-scst iso now?

I think yes. We have iSCSI target support (TCM) in default kernel and
its related target-cli util since v2.5 iirc. I'm running a box with TCM
since few months without any problem.

> kernel might work. Sticking to LTS kernels saves us for much work.

+1

- leo

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From: Carlo Landmeter <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 1 May 2013 14:56:58 +0200

On Wed, May 1, 2013 at 2:43 PM, Leonardo Arena <[email-masked]> wrote:

> I've stopped maintaining it. We can just drop it in favor of TCM.

> Help:         [email-masked]
Carlo

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From: "V.Krishn" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 1 May 2013 19:24:55 +0530

> migration plan for vserver -> LXC.

Can we have a little insight on VServer / LXC:
1. Which is stable and actively developed.
2. Which relatively uses more of recent kernels new advancements.
3. Does adding LXC to alpine  also require patches like VServer does.
4. For 2.3 above - efforts involved.
5. Migration issues. 

> kernel might work. Sticking to LTS kernels saves us for much work.

Will this be same for coming Alpine releases ?

-- 
Regards,
V.Krishn

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From: Natanael Copa <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 1 May 2013 16:56:08 +0200

On Wed, 1 May 2013 19:24:55 +0530

> 1. Which is stable and actively developed.

stable: vserver

(very) actively developed: LXC

> 2. Which relatively uses more of recent kernels new advancements.

LXC

> 3. Does adding LXC to alpine  also require patches like VServer does.

No. LXC is in mainline kernel. Vserver requires patching. This is main reason why we want move to LXC in the long run.

> 4. For 2.3 above - efforts involved.

i think for now I would have to do the porting myself. I don't know how much work it is. It might be fairly straighfroward, it might be very messy (i expect the latter due to namespace improvements in recent kernels)

> 5. Migration issues.

Migration does not need to be very difficult. I think it it should be relatively easy to make a migration script that takes the vserver config and converts it to LXC. 
 
> Will this be same for coming Alpine releases ?

This would only be for vserver kernel for now. And if we go this route, it will be what we do with alpine-vserver as long as we maintain it. (1-1.5 years ahead)

Basically, I think nobody should set up any new vserver hosts. The alpine releases would only be for maintaining the existing servers.

Hm. Maybe we should just kill alpine-vserver isos now, and tell vserver users to stick to alpine-vserver-2.4.y, which we then maintain for as long as needed? (1 year more). It means we will spit out new v2.4 releases for another year.

The vserver hosts will not get any of the new features, but those are supposed to be as minimal as possible anyways...

-nc

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From: "V.Krishn" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 1 May 2013 20:35:17 +0530

On Wednesday, May 01, 2013 08:26:08 PM Natanael Copa wrote:
> No. LXC is in mainline kernel. Vserver requires patching. This is main
> reason why we want move to LXC in the long run.
> 
> i think for now I would have to do the porting myself. I don't know how
> much work it is. It might be fairly straighfroward, it might be very messy
> (i expect the latter due to namespace improvements in recent kernels)

I would suggest to put the effort to moving more wanted features like zfs to 
mains.

> 
> > 5. Migration issues.
> 
> Migration does not need to be very difficult. I think it it should be
> relatively easy to make a migration script that takes the vserver config
> and converts it to LXC.

then LXC :-)

> This would only be for vserver kernel for now. And if we go this route, it
> will be what we do with alpine-vserver as long as we maintain it. (1-1.5
> years ahead)
> 
> Basically, I think nobody should set up any new vserver hosts. The alpine
> releases would only be for maintaining the existing servers.
> 
> Hm. Maybe we should just kill alpine-vserver isos now, and tell vserver
> users to stick to alpine-vserver-2.4.y, which we then maintain for as long
> as needed? (1 year more). It means we will spit out new v2.4 releases for
> another year.

If point 2.1 is not much work, release with 3.4x (ltsi) with NOTE of being 
discontinued with coming release+1.
Discontinuing the current alpine-vserver without a prior note does not seem 
quite ok.

> 
> The vserver hosts will not get any of the new features, but those are
> supposed to be as minimal as possible anyways...
> 
> -nc
> 
> 

-- 
Regards.
V.Krishn

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