rpm-ostree/docs/extensions.md
Jonathan Lebon 317b920667 extensions: Add support for development extensions
In RHCOS, we ship kernel development-related packages as an extension.
Those aren't really extensions that are meant to be layered onto the
host.  They're meant to be used in a build environment somewhere to
compile kernel modules.

This makes it very different from "OS extensions" in at least two
drastic ways:
1. we don't want to do any depsolving (e.g. we don't want to pull in
   `gcc` or something)
2. some of those packages may be present in the base already, but we
   still want to redownload them

Hesitated putting this functionality in rpm-ostree, but I think in the
end it cuts from the benefit of moving this code to rpm-ostree if we
can't entirely get rid of the Python script it obsoletes. Plus, being
able to use the `match-base-evr` is still really useful for this use
case.

Let's add a new `kind` key to support this. The traditional extensions
are called "OS extensions" and these new extensions are called
"development extensions".

The latter is not yet part of the state checksum, so change detection
doesn't work there. I think that's fine for now though because the
primary use case is the kernel, and there we want to match the base
version. So if the kernel changes, the base would change too. (Though
there's the corner case of adding a new package to the list while at the
same version...)
2021-02-03 12:22:38 -05:00

2.2 KiB

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Extensions

Extensions are additional packages which client machines can install using package layering. While rpm-ostree itself is indifferent on the subject, most rpm-ostree-based distros encourage a containerized workflow for better separation of host and application layers. But sometimes, containerization is not ideal for some software, and yet it may not be desirable to bake them into the OSTree commit by default.

Package layering normally fetches such extensions from remote repos. However in some architectures there may be a better way to transfer them, or one may simply want tighter control over them and stronger binding between OSTree commit and extension versions (e.g. for reproducibility, guaranteed depsolve, QE, releng, etc..).

rpm-ostree compose extensions takes an extensions.yaml file describing OS extensions (packages) and a base OSTree commit. After performing a depsolve, it downloads the extension packages and places them in an output directory.

extensions.yaml

The format of the extensions.yaml file is as follow:

# The top-level object is a dict. The only supported key
# right now is `extensions`, which is a dict of extension
# names to extension objects.
extensions:
  # This can be whatever name you'd like. The name itself
  # isn't used by rpm-ostree.
  sooper-dooper-tracers:
    # Optional; defaults to `os-extension`. An OS extension
    # is an extension intended to be `rpm-ostree install`ed.
    kind: os-extension
    # List of packages for this extension
    packages:
        - strace
        - ltrace
    # Optional list of architectures on which this extension
    # is valid. These are RPM basearches. If omitted,
    # defaults to all architectures.
    architectures:
        - x86_64
        - aarch64
  kernel-dev:
    # A development extension lists packages useful for
    # developing for the target OSTree, but won't be layered
    # on top. A common example is kernel modules. No
    # depsolving happens, packages listed are downloaded.
    kind: development
    packages:
      - kernel-devel
      - kernel-headers
    # Optional name of a base package used to constrain the
    # EVR of all the packages in this extension.
    match-base-evr: kernel