devel February 2023

devel@lists.centos.org

18 participants
16 discussions

[REPORT] Quarterly Report - CentOS Automotive SIG
by Jeffrey Osier-Mixon 17 Aug '23

17 Aug '23

January 2023 Quarterly report submitted by: Jefro Osier-Mixon, Red Hat - chair _____________________________________ Membership update This SIG does not have a formal membership process. The mailing list currently has 106 subscribers representing at least 32 organizations, though not all subscribers use corporate emails and some are participating as individuals. _____________________________________ Releases in the most recent quarter (or most recent release, if none in that quarter) The Automotive SIG produces three types of artifacts: - AutoSD, a streaming distribution of CentOS designed for in-vehicle automotive use cases. - An Automotive SIG RPM repository that allows the community to expand the content of AutoSD or experiment with some of its parts. - Sample images, built using OSBuild, which provide examples of how to assemble production images based on AutoSD, customized for some hardware, including container images, based on CoreOS/ostree technologies. AutoSD, or Automotive Stream Distribution, is a streaming distribution for automotive in-vehicle software development based on CentOS Stream. It is transparently the upstream project for Red Hat's eventual in-vehicle OS product. AutoSD has been downloaded and used by many organizations who have commented or asked for help, so we know it is getting some traction though of course we don't have exact metrics on usage. In Q4 2022, we released a version of AutoSD compatible with the emerging SOAFEE specification. SOAFEE (https://soafee.io) is an initiative driven by Arm for the purpose of developing a reference specification for Arm-based software-defined vehicles (SDVs) consisting of an operating system, container orchestration strategy, and application layer. In addition, we introduced a very lightweight container runtime based on podman and systemd that does not include Kubernetes, as the latter represented a significant performance hit on all relevant hardware. We presented at the Arm Developer Summit in November on these topics. In the coming quarter, we plan to tighten up documentation, begin a process for accepting and supporting hardware enablement contributions, and continue to develop AutoSD toward the SOAFEE specification while also contributing to that specification within the SOAFEE community. _____________________________________ Health report and general activity narrative The SIG typically has 1 public meeting per month with 25-40 attendees, with visible participation from 7-10 separate organizations. We have largely given up on a separate office hours meeting due to attendance. This SIG is intended to be a community effort with contributions and shared benefits from all participants. All formal meetings are recorded and posted on this page: https://wiki.centos.org/SpecialInterestGroup/Automotive/Meetings Several Red Hat employees made the initial contributions to the project as well as the infrastructure required to build and test it. We occupy a gitlab repository in the CentOS namespace building software regularly using CI, with build instructions provided on the documentation page at https://sigs.centos.org/automotive/ . Sample images are present and downloadable along with customization and build instructions. _____________________________________ Issues for the board to address, if any None, keep up the excellent work :) Jeffrey "Jefro" Osier-Mixon | jefro(a)redhat.com Red Hat Office of the CTO | Sr. Principal Community Architect, Automotive

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Discussion: Open technical questions concerning SIG content for RHEL releases
by Peter Georg 09 Jun '23

09 Jun '23

Dear all, There has been an inquiry to the CentOS Board to clarify how long SIGs can expect to be able to build against RHEL build targets [1]. This is necessary to allow SIGs themselves to communicate expected lifecycle of their content to users. The outcome of this, in summary, is that SIGs should be able to build against RHEL until it reaches EOL (end of Maintenance Phase) + 30 days (no access to ELS content). This policy follows the one used by EPEL. Note: It is (obviously) still up to every single SIG to decide if and for how long they want to support a particular RHEL (or CentOS Stream) release. This inquiry also included respectively raised some technical questions. These technical questions are not to be decided by the CentOS Board. In [2] it has been recommended to discuss these on centos-devel. So let's do that. I want to start with two open questions which I do know of. In case there are other open question concerning this matter please raise them here. First open question is where to push content produced by SIGs for RHEL8 to. To better understand the issue, let me summarize the current situation, for which we first need to define the used format for tags in CBS: <sig><el>-<project>-<version>-{candidate,testing,release} where <el> can currently be 7,8,8s,9,9s Packages tagged for -testing are pushed to: https://buildlogs.centos.org/centos/<el>/<sig>/<arch>/<project>-<version>/ Packages tagged for -released are push to: If el = 8 or 8s: debuginfo rpm packages: https://debuginfo.centos.org/centos/<el>/<sig>/<arch>/<project>-<version>/ src.rpm packages: https://vault.centos.org/centos/<el>/<sig>/Source/<project>-<version>/ Everything else: http://mirror.centos.org/centos/<el>/<sig>/<arch>/<project>-<version>/ If el = 9 or 9s: http://mirror.stream.centos.org/SIGs/<el>/<sig>/<arch>/<project>-<version>/ For src.rpm <arch> is source. Note: Although it is not relevant for the discussion, in fact on the mirrors the suffix "s" of <el> is replaced by "-stream". This currently is all fine. However it is planned that the infrastructure currently used for packages built for 8 or 8s will disappear once CentOS Stream 8 and CentOS Linux 7 are EOL (June 30th, 2024). So in case any SIG decides to produce content for RHEL 8 after that date packages can not be distributed properly anymore. Only using the -testing tag and thus https://buildlogs.centos.org is not really an option as it would probably produce too much load on these. My proposal: After CentOS Stream 8 went EOL (May 31st, 2024), which is the same date as the end of the Full support phase of RHEL 8, at least the -release tag of all RHEL 8 build targets is locked and SIGs have to opt-in in case they want to build content for RHEL 8 during its Maintenance Support phase (End: May 31st 2029) for a particular build target. For these, tagging for -release will then push content to http://mirror.stream.centos.org/SIGs/8/<sig>/<arch>/<project>-<version>/, i.e. the same location as used for 9 and 9s. This gives SIGs one month for all required changes before the currently infrastructure disappears. Of course this means additional work for SIGs and Infra. However at some point the location where to push content to has to be changed before the currently used infrastructure disappears. Choosing an earlier date would result in work for SIGs who do not want to continue providing any packages once RHEL 8 enters Maintenance Support phase anyway. The second open question concerns the centos-release-* packages provided by SIGs to allow users to easily consume SIGs' content. For 8s and 9s the CBS tags extras<el>-extras-common-{candidate,testing,release} are used to build these packages. This repository is added in CentOS Stream 8 and 9. For packages build for RHEL 8 and 9 there is currently no common way to provide any means of easing the process to consume SIGs' content. My proposal to fix this is by adding extras<el>-extras-common-{candidate,testing,release} for <el> = 8 and 9, i.e., using the same system as currently used for 8s and 9s. To further ease the process I propose to introduce a package named centos-release-extras which contains the repository config pointing to the content of the tags extras<el>-extras-common-{testing,release} (only -release enabled by default) and the CentOS-SIG-Extras GPG key. The centos-release-extras packages itself would be built in the extras<el>-extras-common-el<el> build target. Users of RHEL would then only need to install this single package to allow them to easily install any other centos-release-* packages. Obviously someone needs to maintain the centos-release-extras package. I volunteer to maintain this package. [1]: https://git.centos.org/centos/board/issue/82 [2]: https://pagure.io/centos-infra/issue/1002

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Few questions on cloud images
by Pino Toscano 06 Jun '23

06 Jun '23

Hello, I have few questions related to the cloud images provides for c8s and c9s, i.e.: - https://cloud.centos.org/centos/8-stream/x86_64/images/ - https://cloud.centos.org/centos/9-stream/x86_64/images/ 1) I see the c9s images are regularly updated, while the c8s images not; is this wanted, or simply a mistake/miss somewhere? If so, will they be kept up-to-date just like the c9s images? 2) are the Vagrant images there officially supported? Let's say you use one, and find a bug; then check on a "classic" installation (baremetal/VM), and the bug isn't there; can users report problems in those cases? 3) would it be possible to have either unversioned or "-latest" symlinks for the latest versions of all the files (i.e. images, checksums, etc)? This way, it will be much easier for users to fetch the latest versions with no need to change URLs frequently. Of course, the assumption is that users of this are always willing to use the latest version. Thanks! -- Pino Toscano

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RFC (Request for Comments) : future of bugs.centos.org
by Fabian Arrotin 10 May '23

10 May '23

Let's discuss https://bugs.centos.org ! For a long time, we used to only have one public tracker , powered by MantisBT (https://mantisbt.org/) , and it was https://bugs.centos.org Due to various changes in the CentOS ecosystem in the last years, some categories were removed/migrated elsewhere : - CentOS infra tracker : https://pagure.io/centos-infra/issues - CentOS Stream : https://bugzilla.redhat.com Some other SIGs also started to have (and document) their own tracker (see https://wiki.centos.org/ReportBugs) So the question is : while we can easily migrate bugs.centos.org to el9, should we ? All comments/remarks are welcome, and let's have a plan about what to do Kind Regards, -- Fabian Arrotin The CentOS Project | https://www.centos.org gpg key: 17F3B7A1 | @arrfab[@fosstodon.org]

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RFC (Request for Comments) : future of forums.centos.org
by Fabian Arrotin 29 Mar '23

29 Mar '23

Let's chat about forums.centos.org ! IMHO, that service can be easily moved to a newer OS/PHP stack and so continue to run. But on the other hand, I heard rumors that some forums moderators would like to stop maintaining/moderating it after 2024. I also heard that there is now a centos category on fedora discourse (https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/c/centos/71) So while we (centos infra) can easily migrate that server, should we ? Let's spend some time investigating the options and take a decision about it ! Kind Regards, -- Fabian Arrotin The CentOS Project | https://www.centos.org gpg key: 17F3B7A1 | @arrfab[@fosstodon.org]

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[Action Required] : Decommissioning (on premises) OpenShift CI cluster
by Fabian Arrotin 29 Mar '23

29 Mar '23

Hi all, Camilla announced this in december already (https://lists.centos.org/pipermail/ci-users/2022-December/thread.html) and we sent multiple reminders about that. The plan was already knew since it was decided to move the whole CI infra to AWS (announced in June 2022) but the last bit that had to move was the openshift CI cluster (aka *.apps.ocp.ci.centos.org) to AWS (https://console-openshift-console.apps.ocp.cloud.ci.centos.org/) As the new cluster in AWS is deployed since end of November you still have to migrate your workload from old to new cluster, and that *before* end of March 2023 (see https://sigs.centos.org/guide/ci/#migration-to-new-ci-instance) We'll continue to send such reminders as long as we see tenants who haven't migrated (yet) We prefer announce it multiple times so that nobody will ask "where is my app gone ?" when the whole cluster will be powered down end of March. PS: if you have already migrated, please confirm to us so that we can already delete your project/namespace/storage PV in the previous cluster. Kind Regards, -- Fabian Arrotin The CentOS Project | https://www.centos.org gpg key: 17F3B7A1 | twitter: @arrfab

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Proposal: CentOS x86 SIG
by Florian Weimer 16 Mar '23

16 Mar '23

# Goals The purpose of this SIG is to quantify the potential benefits of applying existing compiler technology to distribution packages, targeting more recent CPUs, and evaluating different options for how these optimizations can be maintained in a scalable way, and delivered to end users. Today, there is a significant delay between the release of new x86-64 ISAs and the adoption across the entire CentOS distribution. For example, CentOS 9 Stream released with the x86-64-v2 ISA baseline, nine to thirteen years after such CPUs became commercially available. The concern is that this discrepancy leaves more recent CPU features unused, and end users do not see the best possible performance for the CPUs they use. Parts of the distribution are built with run-time selected optimizations, but this only applies to specialized functional areas, such as string manipulation, certain mathematical operations, and cryptography, but not (for example) to language interpreters that are part of CentOS. # Status Proposed: RFC and looking for a sponsoring Governing Board member # What’s in scope * Explore the immediate runtime performance impact of package-specific ISA-related work on key workloads e.g. language interpreters. * Evaluate the performance benefit at run-time of building CentOS with auto-vectorization and the very-cheap cost model and different x86-64 micro-architecture levels. * Explore ways how these performance-enhancing builds can be maintained at the distribution level and made available to end users for installation. * Assess the image/container size impact of those additional optimized builds (this may not be applicable to some delivery mechanisms). * Explore ways to alert users that they do not get optimal performance because of misconfigured hypervisors. * It is possible, but not likely, that work across the entire distribution may be needed to enable shadow stacks. (Userspace enablement happened as part of CentOS 8, but the kernel parts are not upstream and have changed significantly, so there is some uncertainty.) If large-scale work affecting many packages is needed, the SIG would be a natural place to prototype changes before integration into the distribution. # What's not in scope * Enablement for future x86 CPUs and chipsets, assemblers, linkers, and compiler support for new ISAs including regular performance work on individual packages (e.g., identified upstream backports). Hardware enablement must follow existing processes. * Any 32-bit work (such as 64-bit time_t, or a 32-bit kernel) is explicitly excluded. * The focus will be on userspace changes. * Rebuilds for potential observability improvements are out of scope (although shadow stacks are expected to help in this a * Adding additional hosts to the CentOS infrastructure in support of this SIG needs to be negotiated with the CentOS infrastructure team. The CPU microarchitecture level of the existing infrastructure is already sufficient. # Roadmap March 2023: Start the SIG and coordinate with partners April 2023: Adopt existing CentOS builder resources to deliver the required builds. May 2023: Initial performance analysis results. Rest TBD based on results of exploration. Resources They SIG could benefit from spare x86-64 Koji builder capacity.

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Take 1 minute to help with Infra & Releng Team with a decision
by Michal Konecny 07 Mar '23

07 Mar '23

Hi everyone, it came to Infra & Releng Team (sub-team in CPE that is taking care of Fedora Infra, Fedora Release Engineering and CentOS Infra) attention that there is a confusion about the labels we are using for issues in our trackers. Namely fedora-infrastructure, releng and centos-infra. There was even a request to change them to something less confusing. So we want to decide if this is really need to change, so we ask you to take this quick survey [0] (this is an anonymous survey, nothing is collected by us) to see if the change is really needed or people are happy with current labels. The survey will be closed on 7th March 2023. On behalf of I&R Team, Michal [0] - https://forms.gle/J2HWDkw1UNuj8HYD8

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RFC (Request for Comments) : future of wiki.centos.org
by Fabian Arrotin 28 Feb '23

28 Feb '23

Let's start discussing the future of wiki.centos.org ! There was a CentOS Docs SIG day happening on monday after Fosdem and during that day, we started to discuss the future of wiki.centos.org. As a reminder : https://wiki.centos.org is actually powered by moin (http://moinmo.in/), which is : - python 2.x based - unmaintained It's also running on CentOS Linux 7 (for these requirements), itself going EOL next year. Also worth adding that it's under constant spammer load, with plenty of bots trying to write content, be denied, and trying in a different way, so it's really a "whack a mole" game. For all these reasons, it has to be replaced by something else, (still a wiki) or even better, be decommissioned entirely and eventually moved to a git workflow. FWIW, it's what is used for all websites from various SIGs under https://sigs.centos.org (including the SIG guide itself, https://sigs.centos.org/guide) As a follow-up on the CentOS SIG day, an investigation (see https://pagure.io/centos-infra/issue/1061) was started as a PoC to just extract wiki content in a readable (static) format, so that we can still host a "read-only" version (archived) of wiki content, while a new service (wiki or else) would replace it. All comments/remarks are welcome, and let's have a plan about what to do (the sooner, the better) Kind Regards, -- Fabian Arrotin The CentOS Project | https://www.centos.org gpg key: 17F3B7A1 | @arrfab[@fosstodon.org]

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February Newsletter
by Shaun McCance 27 Feb '23

27 Feb '23

It's monthly newsletter time. FOSDEM and CentOS Connect recap. KDE EPEL updates. Reports from the Cloud, NFV, Storage, and Promo SIGs. https://blog.centos.org/2023/02/centos-community-newsletter-february-2023/

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devel February 2023