doc: Add some docs about adapting existing package managers

This commit is contained in:
Colin Walters 2013-08-24 11:35:42 -04:00
parent db4aecee44
commit 84f2cd249a
4 changed files with 212 additions and 15 deletions

View File

@ -78,6 +78,7 @@ content_files= \
repo.xml \
deployment.xml \
atomic-upgrades.xml \
adapting-existing.xml \
$(NULL)
# SGML files where gtk-doc abbrevations (#GtkWidget) are expanded

204
doc/adapting-existing.xml Normal file
View File

@ -0,0 +1,204 @@
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE book PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.1.2//EN"
"http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.1.2/docbookx.dtd" [
<!ENTITY version SYSTEM "../version.xml">
]>
<part id="adapting-existing">
<title>Adapating existing mainstream distributions</title>
<chapter id="layout">
<title>System layout</title>
<para>
First, OSTree encourages systems to implement <ulink
url="http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/TheCaseForTheUsrMerge/">UsrMove</ulink>.
This is simply to avoid the need for more bind mounts. By
default OSTree's dracut hook creates a read-only bind mount over
<filename class='directory'>/usr</filename>; you can of course
generate individual bind-mounts for <filename
class='directory'>/bin</filename>, all the <filename
class='directory'>/lib</filename> variants, etc. So it is not
intended to be a hard requirement.
</para>
<para>
The <filename class='directory'>/sysroot</filename> directory is
a new OS-level directory that OSTree expects to use as a bind
mount target to the physical <filename
class='directory'>/</filename> root directory. Remember,
because by default the system is booted into a
<literal>chroot</literal> equivalent, there has to be some way
to refer to the actual physical root filesystem, and there is
precedent for this name in the initramfs context. This
directory must exist; for example, the OSTree tool at runtime
expects that <filename
class='directory'>/sysroot/ostree/repo</filename> refers to the
system repository.
</para>
<para>
Because OSTree only preserves <filename
class='directory'>/var</filename> across upgrades, it is very
strongly recommended for systems which want to preserve
compatibility with the <ulink
url="http://www.pathname.com/fhs/">Filesystem Hierarchy
Standard</ulink> to create the following symbolic links:
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>
<filename class='directory'>/home</filename> to <filename class='directory'>/var/home</filename>
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
<filename class='directory'>/opt</filename> to <filename class='directory'>/var/opt</filename>
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
<filename class='directory'>/usr/local</filename> to <filename class='directory'>/var/local</filename>
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
<filename class='directory'>/mnt</filename> to <filename class='directory'>/var/mnt</filename>
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
<filename class='directory'>/tmp</filename> to <filename class='directory'>/sysroot/tmp</filename>
</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</para>
<para>
Furthermore, since <filename class='directory'>/var</filename>
is empty by default, your operating system will need to
dynamically create these directories at boot. A good way to do
this is using <command>systemd-tmpfiles</command>, if your OS
uses systemd. For example:
</para>
<programlisting>
<![CDATA[
d /var/log/journal 0755 root root -
L /var/home - - - - ../sysroot/home
d /var/opt 0755 root root -
d /var/srv 0755 root root -
d /var/roothome 0700 root root -
d /var/usrlocal 0755 root root -
d /var/usrlocal/bin 0755 root root -
d /var/usrlocal/etc 0755 root root -
d /var/usrlocal/games 0755 root root -
d /var/usrlocal/include 0755 root root -
d /var/usrlocal/lib 0755 root root -
d /var/usrlocal/man 0755 root root -
d /var/usrlocal/sbin 0755 root root -
d /var/usrlocal/share 0755 root root -
d /var/usrlocal/src 0755 root root -
d /var/mnt 0755 root root -
d /run/media 0755 root root -
]]>
</programlisting>
</chapter>
<chapter id="booting">
<title>Booting and initramfs technology</title>
<para>
OSTree comes with optional dracut+systemd integration code that
parses the <literal>ostree=</literal> kernel command line
argument in the initramfs, and then sets up the read-only bind
mount on <filename class='directory'>/usr</filename>, a bind
mount on the deployment's <filename
class='directory'>/sysroot</filename> to the physical <filename
class='directory'>/</filename>, and then finally uses
<literal>mount(MS_MOVE)</literal> to make the deployment root appear to be the
root filesystem before telling systemd to switch root.
</para>
<para>
If you are not using dracut or systemd, using OSTree should still
be possible, but you will have to write the integration code. Patches
to support other initramfs technologies and init systems, if sufficiently
clean, will likely be accepted upstream.
</para>
<para>
A further specific note regarding <command>sysvinit</command>:
OSTree used to support recording device files such the
<filename>/dev/initctl</filename> FIFO, but no longer does.
It's recommended to just patch your initramfs to create this at
boot.
</para>
</chapter>
<chapter id="adapting-package-manager">
<title>Adapting existing package managers</title>
<para>
The largest endeavor is likely to be redesigning your
distribution's package manager to be on top of OSTree,
particularly if you want to keep compatibility with the "old
way" of installing into the physical <filename
class='directory'>/</filename>. This section will use examples
from both <command>dpkg</command> and <command>rpm</command> as
the author has familiarity with both; but the abstract concepts
should apply to most traditional package managers.
</para>
<para>
There are many levels of possible integration; initially, we
will describe the most naive implementation which is the
simplest but also the least efficient. We will assume here that
the admin is booted into an OSTree-enabled system, and wants to
add a set of packages.
</para>
<para>
Many package managers store their state in <filename
class='directory'>/var</filename>; but since in the OSTree model
that directory is shared between independent versions, the
package database must first be found in the per-deployment
<filename class='directory'>/usr</filename> directory. It
becomes read-only; remember, all upgrades involve constructing a
new filesystem tree, so your package manager will also need to
create a copy of its database. Most likely, if you want to
continue supporting non-OSTree deployments, simply have your
package manager fall back to the legacy <filename
class='directory'>/var</filename> location if the one in
<filename class='directory'>/usr</filename> is not found.
</para>
<para>
To install a set of new packages (without removing any existing
ones), enumerate the set of packages in the currently booted
deployment, and perform dependency resolution to compute the
complete set of new packages. Download and unpack these new
packages to a temporary directory.
</para>
<para>
Now, because we are merely installing new packages and not
removing anything, we can make the major optimization of reusing
our existing filesystem tree, and merely
<emphasis>layering</emphasis> the composed filesystem tree of
these new packages on top. A command lke this: <command>ostree
commit -b osname/releasename/description
--tree=ref=<replaceable>osname/releasenamename/description</replaceable>
--tree=dir=/var/tmp/newpackages.13A8D0/</command> will create a
new commit in the
<replaceable>osname/releasename/description</replaceable>
branch. The OSTree SHA256 checksum of all the files in
/var/tmp/newpackages.13A8D0/ will be computed, but we will not
re-checksum the present existing tree. In this layering model,
earlier directories will take precedence, but files in later
layers will silently override earlier layers.
</para>
<para>
Then to actually deploy this tree for the next boot:
<command>ostree admin deploy
<replaceable>osname/releasenamename/description</replaceable></command>
</para>
</chapter>
</part>

View File

@ -82,24 +82,15 @@
"live" on the currently booted filesystem. The way they could
work with OSTree is instead to take the list of installed
packages in the currently booted tree, and compute a new
filesystem from that.
filesystem from that. A later chapter describes in more details
how this could work: <xref linkend="adapting-existing"/>.
</para>
<para>
The most basic implementation of this would be something like
taking the result of <command>rpm -qa</command>, and doing
<command>yum --installroot=/var/tmp/newroot install
<replaceable>package1</replaceable>
<replaceable>package2</replaceable> ...</command>. Then,
<command>ostree commit -b osname/localtree
--tree=dir=/var/tmp/newroot</command>. This would checksum all
of the input files and store them in local <filename
class='directory'>/ostree/repo</filename> repository, creating
a new commit.
</para>
<para>
Now, we can move on to deployment.
For the purposes of this section, let's assume that we have a
newly generated filesystem tree stored in the repo (which shares
storage with the existing booted tree). We can then move on to
checking it back out of the repo into a deployment.
</para>
</chapter>

View File

@ -15,6 +15,7 @@
<xi:include href="repo.xml"/>
<xi:include href="deployment.xml"/>
<xi:include href="atomic-upgrades.xml"/>
<xi:include href="adapting-existing.xml"/>
<chapter xml:id="reference">
<title>API Reference</title>