[lsb-discuss] [Fedora-packaging] SCL discussion at yesterday's meeting, easy stuff

[Toshio Kuratomi]

On Thu, Nov 07, 2013 at 01:43:48PM -0500, R P Herrold wrote:
> On Thu, 7 Nov 2013, Joe Julian wrote:
> 
> > Which implies the only requirement is that the SCL installer would have to ask
> > before replacing a package (assuming /opt/<package>). The LANANA registration
> > and subsequent package hierarchy would be simplest, safest, and most logical,
> > imho.
> 
> The LSB folks at our weekly bug triage considered the bug 
> filed by Matt Miller on the topic [1].  The FHS and LANANA 
> space is mature without much activity, and so my comment 2 in 
> that bug was designed to permit a 'fast-track' assignment of a 
> /opt/fedora/ namespace, for use as the project sees fit
> 
> We need to do some infrastructure work with LANANA to 
> communicate this well within the FHS documentation, but as 
> Jeff's summary indicates, absent some major objection being 
> surfaced, will, I think, be the way the LSB proceeds in its 
> next update (usually done at six month intervals)
> 
> -- Russ herrold
> 
> [1] https://bugs.linuxfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1164
>
Thank Russ!

Reading the replies to the Linux Foundation bug report there's a few
concerns that I think would help FPC members who are concerned by /opt:

* Preallocation of LANANA names sounds great!  Thanks.
* FPC members might still be concerned about clashes between software and
  registered LANANA names that weren't registered until recently such as
  Fedora when it gets pre-allocated.  Thinking about it this weekend,
  I don't see much way around this except to actually update the FHS around
  /opt.  Maybe something like the following changes:


 A package to be installed in /opt must locate its static files in[...]the
 provider's LANANA registered name.
+Distributions may utilize this structure to install software but must obey
+the same rules as any other vendor.

[...]

 The directories /opt/bin, /opt/doc, /opt/include, /opt/info, /opt/lib, and
 /opt/man are reserved for local system administrator use. [...] these
 reserved directories.
+
+The directories /opt/<provider> are reserved for vendors to install their
+packages' files within.  System administrators are cautioned that because
+the list of LANANA provider names grows over time they should not make
+arbitrary files and directories inside of /opt.  Instead make local changes
+in one of the /opt subdirectories listed above or in /srv.

[...]

-Distributions may install software in /opt, but must not modify or delete
-software installed by the local system administrator without the assent of
-the local system administrator.

+Vendors who install software in /opt must not modify or delete software
+installed by the local system administrator without the assent of the local
+system administrator.  Since the /opt/<provider> hierarchies are reserved
+for vendors, vendors are encouraged to limit their software installation to
+the /opt/<provider> hierarchy belonging to them to avoid conflicts.

  http://www.pathname.com/fhs/pub/fhs-2.3.html#OPTADDONAPPLICATIONSOFTWAREPACKAGES

* In the rationale section, I'm not sure I understand the purpose of:
  "Generally, all data required to support a package on a system must be
  present within /opt/<package>, including files intended to be copied into
  /etc/opt/<package> and /var/opt/<package> as well as reserved directories
  in /opt."
  My gut feeling is that the dual requirement is so that the sys admin can
  have a baseline to revert to or if they are using a network mount of the
  /opt hierarchy and want to bring up a new machine.  With Fedora-provided
  rpms, the rpm should serve that same purpose so I think we can waive the
  requirement to have the files in /opt/<provider>... they can be present in
  only /etc/opt/<provider> and /var/opt/<provider>.

* In the FPC meeting we talked about whether
  /var/scls/<provider>/<scl>/log/<logfiles> or
  /var/log/scls/<provider>/<scl>/<logfiles> would be preferable and settled
  on the latter so that sysadmins could continue to find their logfiles
  under /var/log.  Do you/the lsb have a feeling about that?  My reading of
  usage of /opt is that the FHS would currently mandate
  /var/opt/<provider>/<scl>/log/<logfiles> -- not sure if this is something
  that could/should be changed.  A rationale of why not to change it would
  be nice though.

limburgher, I know that you were at the last meeting and were championing
the non-opt because of FHS/sysadmin overwriting concerns.  Do you have
anything to add to the above?

Thanks everyone,
Toshio
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