[Users] OpenVZ kernel RPM name

[Dag Wieers]

On Tue, 17 Oct 2006, Kirill Kolyshkin wrote:
> 
> On 10/16/06, Dag Wieers <dag at wieers.com> wrote:
>
> > Yet another mail. The official openvz kernel RPMs are named in such a way
> > that it causes problems. Tools like yum and apt make a special case about
> > kernel RPM files because multiple of these can be installed next to each
> > other.
> >
> > Because OpenVZ name their kernel ovzkernel, this is not possible. Can we
> > change the name of the OpenVZ kernel package from:
> >
> >         ovzkernel-2.6.9-023stab030.1-smp
> > to:
> >         kernel-smp-2.6.9-42.0.3.ovz.1
> >
> > This would make it more clear to people what it is based on and would make
> > apt and yum work with those kernels by default.
>
> I though that (at least) yum detects "install-only" packages by their
> 'provides', not by name. I might be wrong with that though...here's a
> relevant section of /usr/lib/yum-plugins/installonlyn.py (yum-2.6.1):
> 
>    for instpkg in conf.installonlypkgs:
>        for m in mems:
>            if (m.name == instpkg or instpkg in m.po.getProvidesNames()) \
>                   and m.ts_state in ('i', 'u'):
> 
> I'm not yum expert but it seems that 'instpkg in m.po.getProvidesNames()' is
> the piece of code which helps in this scenario.

It's possible, still I don't see why you would deviate from the standard 
name. The functionality is most likely introduced to consider kernel-smp 
and kernel-bigmem as an alternative to kernel.

Nevertheless, this doesn't work for apt. kernel-ovz might work, but the 
proper way to tag a package is in the version or release tags. Not the 
package-name.


> We name our kernel packages as 'ovzkernel...' just because we don't want to
> mess with usual non-openvz kernels. OpenVZ and non-OpenVZ kernel should not
> be treated uniformly, otherwise yum will "upgrade" OpenVZ
> 2.6.16-basedkernel with stock
> 2.6.18 -- which is a wrong thing to do. Well, the fact that vzctl depends on
> something that ovzkernel provides might help, but I'm not sure.

People should restrict what packages they use from what repsitory they 
have enabled and/or exceptions. Having ovzkernel will not prevent 
additional kernel packages to be updated and potentially replacing the ovz 
kernel in grub. Especially when like in our case, we like to have the 
stock kernel available for disaster recovery, troubleshooting or 
vendor-support.

So I don't see the purpose of renaming the ovz kernel package to 
ovzkernel. Users still need to check what kernel is in place and verify 
before rebooting. If anything, it gives a false sense of security or 
causes more confusing.

Especially when documentation and forums refer to the following 
command to list the available kernels:

	rpm -q kernel
or	rpm -qa 'kernel-*'

Proper standards should try to reduce the amount of 'expert' information. 
Needing to know that the openvz kernel is called ovzkernel is useless 
information by any means.

Kind regards,
--   dag wieers,  dag at wieers.com,  http://dag.wieers.com/   --
[all I want is a warm bed and a kind word and unlimited power]