This is the new Fedora kernel standard layout; it has the advantage of being in `/usr` like `/usr/lib/ostree-boot`, but it's not OSTree specific. Further, I think in practice forcing tree builders to compute the checksum is an annoying stumbling block; since we already switched to e.g. computing checksums always when doing pulls, the cost of doing another checksum for the kernel/initramfs is tiny. The "bootcsum" becomes more of an internal implementation detail. Now, there is a transition; my current thought for this is that rpm-ostree will change to default to injecting into both `/usr/lib/ostree-boot` and `/usr/lib/modules`, and stop doing `/boot`, then maybe next year say we drop the `/usr/lib/ostree-boot` by default. A twist here is that the default Fedora kernel RPM layout (and what's in rpm-ostree today) includes a kernel but *not* an initramfs in `/usr/lib/modules`. If we looked only there, we'd just find the kernel. So we need to look in both, and then special case this - pick the legacy layout if we have `/usr/lib/modules` but not an initramfs. While here, rework the code to have an `OstreeKernelLayout` struct which makes dealing with all of the variables nicer. Closes: #1079 Approved by: jlebon
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Deployments
Overview
Built on top of the OSTree versioning filesystem core is a layer
that knows how to deploy, parallel install, and manage Unix-like
operating systems (accessible via ostree admin
). The core content of these operating systems
are treated as read-only, but they transparently share storage.
A deployment is physically located at a path of the form
/ostree/deploy/$stateroot/deploy/$checksum
.
OSTree is designed to boot directly into exactly one deployment
at a time; each deployment is intended to be a target for
chroot()
or equivalent.
"stateroot" (AKA "osname"): Group of deployments that share /var
Each deployment is grouped in exactly one "stateroot" (also known as an "osname"); the former term is preferred.
From above, you can see that an stateroot is physically represented in the
/ostree/deploy/$stateroot
directory. For example, OSTree can allow parallel
installing Debian in /ostree/deploy/debian
and Red Hat Enterprise Linux in
/ostree/deploy/rhel
(subject to operating system support, present released
versions of these operating systems may not support this).
Each stateroot has exactly one copy of the traditional Unix /var
,
stored physically in /ostree/deploy/$stateroot/var
. OSTree provides
support tools for systemd
to create a Linux bind mount that ensures
the booted deployment sees the shared copy of /var
.
OSTree does not touch the contents of /var
. Operating system
components such as daemon services are required to create any
directories they require there at runtime
(e.g. /var/cache/$daemonname
), and to manage upgrading data formats
inside those directories.
Contents of a deployment
A deployment begins with a specific commit (represented as a
SHA256 hash) in the OSTree repository in /ostree/repo
. This commit refers
to a filesystem tree that represents the underlying basis of a
deployment. For short, we will call this the "tree", to
distinguish it from the concept of a deployment.
First, the tree must include a kernel (and optionally an initramfs). The
current standard locations for these are /usr/lib/modules/$kver/vmlinuz
and
/usr/lib/modules/$kver/initramfs
. The "boot checksum" will be computed
automatically. This follows the current Fedora kernel layout, and is
the current recommended path. However, older versions of libostree don't
support this; you may need to also put kernels in the previous (legacy)
paths, which are vmlinuz(-.*)?-$checksum
in either /boot
or /usr/lib/ostree-boot
.
The checksum should be a SHA256 hash of the kernel contents; it must be
pre-computed before storing the kernel in the repository. Optionally,
the directory can also contain an initramfs, stored as
initramfs(-.*)?-$checksum
. If this exists, the checksum must include
both the kernel and initramfs contents. OSTree will use this to
determine which kernels are shared. The rationale for this is to avoid
computing checksums on the client by default.
The deployment should not have a traditional UNIX /etc
; instead, it
should include /usr/etc
. This is the "default configuration". When
OSTree creates a deployment, it performs a 3-way merge using the
old default configuration, the active system's /etc
, and the new
default configuration. In the final filesystem tree for a deployment
then, /etc
is a regular writable directory.
Besides the exceptions of /var
and /etc
then, the rest of the
contents of the tree are checked out as hard links into the
repository. It's strongly recommended that operating systems ship all
of their content in /usr
, but this is not a hard requirement.
Finally, a deployment may have a .origin
file, stored next to its
directory. This file tells ostree admin upgrade
how to upgrade it.
At the moment, OSTree only supports upgrading a single refspec.
However, in the future OSTree may support a syntax for composing
layers of trees, for example.
The system /boot
While OSTree parallel installs deployments cleanly inside the
/ostree
directory, ultimately it has to control the system's /boot
directory. The way this works is via the
Boot Loader Specification,
which is a standard for bootloader-independent drop-in configuration
files.
When a tree is deployed, it will have a configuration file generated
of the form
/boot/loader/entries/ostree-$stateroot-$checksum.$serial.conf
. This
configuration file will include a special ostree=
kernel argument
that allows the initramfs to find (and chroot()
into) the specified
deployment.
At present, not all bootloaders implement the BootLoaderSpec, so
OSTree contains code for some of these to regenerate native config
files (such as /boot/syslinux/syslinux.conf
) based on the entries.