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pjp
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PostPosted: Sun Feb 06, 2011 5:07 am    Post subject: USE flag mgmt on a "build binaries only" host Reply with quote

So I've got a VM which is functioning as a base system for other VMs, including the compile server for other VMs, even though it won't install packages.

For example:
VM1: base & compile box (not everything compiled is installed on this system)
VM2: syslog server only
VM3: mail server only
VM4: DNS only

VM1 has sufficient RAM to compile while VM2 - 4 have minimal RAM (compiles tend to fail as a result). Distcc is not in use (should I?).

VM1 - 4 share a common set of base packages. VM2 - 4 also have packages unique to those systems. VM1 actually compiles those programs (emerge -B) for installation on VM2 - 4 as appropriate (emerge -k).

Since VM1 won't have postfix & dovecot installed, it seems like setting USE variables in /etc/make.conf or /etc/portage wouldn't be a good idea. Yet doing it on the command line could easily lead to "forgetting" to set a USE flag later on. Make sense? I guess in this example, VM3 should have the appropriate USE flags set, but that doesn't help the compile box.

So my question is for suggestions on how to manage USE flags on VM1 for packages which will never be installed on VM1. I'm also open to suggestions of how to do it better / differently in general.

Thx.
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pjp
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PostPosted: Sun Feb 20, 2011 6:02 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Turns out the base system idea isn't viable. Dependencies need to be installed in order to generate the binary package, which defeats the purpose of the base system. At least how I envisioned it.

Back to the drawing board.
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Shining Arcanine
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PostPosted: Mon Feb 21, 2011 12:05 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Have you considered trying to remote mount these systems through NFS shares, chroot into them and do updates from a remote system while they are running? I tried using sshfs to do this a few weeks ago, but permissions issues kept it from working.
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pjp
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PostPosted: Mon Feb 21, 2011 8:36 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Shining Arcanine wrote:
Have you considered trying to remote mount these systems through NFS shares, chroot into them and do updates from a remote system while they are running? I tried using sshfs to do this a few weeks ago, but permissions issues kept it from working.
No, seems a bit complicated. I'm primarily hoping to keep it as simple as possible and automate it (as much as possible). But that might be best in the end.

I was thinking of having each system rely on 2 VMs. A primary & secondary (stolen very loosely from Solaris' Live Update). The primary would be the active system, while the secondary would be the one used for compiling. Disabling the "common" IP address between the two would need to be automated, and there would still need to be another network for updates.

The secondary VM would be updated, then when verified, the primary shut off and the secondary rebooted as the primary (minimum RAM as opposed to enough to compile with, appropriate networking, ???).

Sounds more complicated than it is, and while it isn't simple, I think it seems reasonably automatable.

I'm currently managing VMs manually because I don't have any GUI tools on the host, and I didn't have much luck with virsh (?). Otherwise being able to dynamically assign RAM to a VM would solve the problem. Except the primary & secondary VM solution can also serve as partial redundancy (if an update borks, I can use the other VM).

Thanks for the suggestion though, I'll keep it in mind. I haven't changed how I'm doing it just yet.
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