Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Managing updates on many identical Gentoo systems

["Anthony G. Basile" <blueness@gentoo.org>]

On 1/19/18 9:45 AM, Alec Warner wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 18, 2018 at 5:13 PM, Bill Kenworthy <billk@iinet.net.au> wrote:
> 
>> On 18/01/18 23:36, Duncan wrote:
>>> Anthony G. Basile posted on Thu, 18 Jan 2018 06:46:53 -0500 as excerpted:
>>>
>>>> I'm trying to design an update system for many identical Gentoo systems.
>>>>  Using a binhost is obvious, but there are still problems with this
>>>> approach.
>>>>
>>
>> I'd suggest go for a semi diskless OS - boot them from one central image
>> with an individual overlay filesystem with local customisations.  NFS
>> mount the common directories.
>>
>> you just have a one central host to build for and don't need to worry
>> about portage everywhere.
>>
>> Worked ok with a small number of mythtv frontends.
>>
> 
> It doesn't work if you have a WAN; NFS needs low latencies between the NFS
> server and the client or you will have a bad time.
> 
> 

Zac pretty much nailed the requirements in bug #644990.  You should not
need the portage tree at all, neither locally nor via any network
filesystem.  He mentions there that it is currently possible via "a
dummy profile", but I'm not sure what he means by that yet or how to set
one up.  I'll read his bug #640318 and try to figure it out.

Thanks guys, I'm glad people at least recognized the usefulness of such
a possibility.

-- 
Anthony G. Basile, Ph.D.
Gentoo Linux Developer [Hardened]
E-Mail    : blueness@gentoo.org
GnuPG FP  : 1FED FAD9 D82C 52A5 3BAB  DC79 9384 FA6E F52D 4BBA
GnuPG ID  : F52D4BBA