[CentOS-devel] URLs in centos-release-<sig> packages: /altarch vs. /centos/

Tue Mar 6 12:21:47 UTC 2018
Murilo Opsfelder Araujo <muriloo at linux.vnet.ibm.com>

On 03/06/2018 03:11 AM, Brian Stinson wrote:
> Hi Folks,
> 
> Now that we have SIG Content in the /altarch directories for CentOS 7 on the
> mirrors, we need to come with some requirements and recommendations for dealing
> with the different locations. 
> 
> tl;dr The current thinking is to add the following snippet in the %post of
> centos-release and release to all of the arches. This will set a yum var to the
> correct content location when a new system gets installed: 
> 
>     `uname -m | grep -q 'x86_64'  && echo 'centos' >/etc/yum/vars/contentdir || echo 'altarch' >/etc/yum/vars/contentdir`
> 
> Here's the start of a proposal from the SIG perspective
> 
> ## Requirements:
> 
> - The same noarch binary RPM *must* be distributable to the Extras
>   repo for each architecture
> 
> - The centos-release-<SIG> packages *must* require centos-release
> 
> 
> ## New Recommendations for creating a centos-release file:
> 
> - A yum variable called 'contentdir' will be populated with the toplevel
>   directory for SIGs to use
> 
> 1.) Modify baseurls in the SIG repo files to look like the following (using
> openstack-queens as an example):
> 
> 
>  [centos-openstack-queens]
>  name=CentOS-7 - OpenStack queens
>  baseurl=https://mirror.centos.org/$contentdir/cloud/$basearch/openstack-queens/
>  gpgcheck=1
>  enabled=1
>  gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-CentOS-SIG-Cloud
>  exclude=sip,PyQt4
> 
> 
> ## Discussion
> 
> I'd like to hear thoughts, additions, and subtractions here before we update
> the SIGGuide and rework centos-release. 
> 
> Cheers!
> 
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> 

Hi, Brian.

I don't have the whole background of why non-x86_64 architectures are
placed at /altarch. Perhaps you or someone else from CentOS can provide
some of the details.

Wouldn't it be simpler if a non-x86_64 architecture was just another
directory on, for example, /centos/7/<content>/<arch> hierarchy?

This also simplifies packaging.

Cheers
Murilo