[Bug 434693] Re: [MIR] ec2-init

[Martin Pitt]

Hello Scott,

Scott Moser [2009-09-23 19:13 -0000]:
> I think a little background information on ec2 and rightscale might be
> useful.

Thanks for the heads-up. I roughly know the setup, but my main concern
is that this is not at all a "software package" in the real sense, but
more like an installer or image builder thing.

> ec2-init is a packaged intended to run only inside of ec2 or an
> ec2-compatible "cloud".

Couldn't the package be by and large turned upside down, and instead
of playing evil tricks to change the system that it gets installed on,
rather wrap vmware-builder and change the system that it is building?
That would be so much cleaner and safer IMHO.

> The rightscale-init can largely be viewed here as a "post-install" or
> "first-boot" script for a full OS install.

Why isn't it possible to do most of this setup when building the
image?

> > By and large, this is totally inappropriate as an init script. Setup
> > should be run in postinst, Ubuntu packages should be pulled in as
> > dependencies, and automatically installing third-party packages subverts
> > our trust chain and packaging policy. Please just package the gem and
> > depend on it.
> 
> Just to be clear, it is not possible to run these as a post-install
> script, or to depend on any set of packages at image-build (installation
> time).

Hm, I'm curious why that is so?

> We have been discussing a way for the ec2-init to make the ec2-init
> package inert if it believes that it is not running on a ec2 compatible
> cloud.

Right, I'm afraid this needs to be the minimum requirement. But even
with that, it's still quite a hack and circumvents the normal way we
use to do safe package installation.

Thanks!

Martin
-- 
Martin Pitt                        | http://www.piware.de
Ubuntu Developer (www.ubuntu.com)  | Debian Developer  (www.debian.org)

-- 
[MIR] ec2-init
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/434693
You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu
Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu.

-- 
ubuntu-bugs mailing list
ubuntu-bugs at lists.ubuntu.com
https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs