[CentOS-devel] Why are Spacewalk packages removed from CentOS?

[Miroslav Suchý]

Karanbir Singh wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> On 01/20/2010 03:59 PM, Miroslav Suchý wrote:
>> severals users of Spacewalk [1] reported that Spacewalk client tools are
>> removed [2] from CentOS (they are present in RHEL).
> 
> I am not sure about that - these are not really 'spacewalk' client tools 
> but are more along the lines of 'rhn tools'.

Yes, they carry the heritage of rhn in their name and their original 
purpose was to connect to rhn.redhat.com (and RHN Satellite), but since 
open sourcing this product as Spacewalk project at 2008, these tools can 
be used to connect to Spacewalk.

> They are removed since they have no real use in the CentOS environment - 
> and we not be a reason for people hitting rhn.r.c when they dont need to 
> or even should be doing so.

They can be used to connect to Spacewalk, which is free upstream project 
of RHN Satellite, which is standalone version of rhn.redhat.com.
Large part (if not majority) of Spacewalk users use CentOS and I'm 
pretty sure they will appreciate, if these tools will be present 
directly in CentoOS.

> I think in the spacewalk context its easier to look at it from the point 
> of view that adding these packages does nothing for the spacewalk user, 
> since they are not the only things needed to make spacewalk environment. 
> So the user haseto already go and enable another repo somewhere, these 
> tools can come from there as well.

I disagree. Majority of people will install only these packages. Yes - 
we have client repo which contains several other tools. But with these 
packages you can do most of the management (install/upgrade/remove 
package, do rollback, compare profiles, run scripts, reboot machines, 
reprovision them...).
In fact even as developer of Spacewalk I rarely use other then those 
mentioned client packages.

> However, if there is a real reason to add these back in I dont see why 
> that could not happen. I just dont see the reason at this time.

I'm not sure if I convinced you, I'm just asking because Spacewalk users 
asks us-developers.

-- 
Miroslav Suchy
Red Hat Satellite Engineering
Cloud Computing and Integrated Solution Dept.