[CentOS-devel] Meaning of separate kickstart/ and os/ folders in CentOS 8 repos?

[James Cassell]

On Tue, Sep 24, 2019, at 8:15 PM, Brian Stinson wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 24, 2019, at 18:56, Anthony Alba wrote:
> > What is the significance of separate kickstart/ and os/ folders in the repos?
> > 
> > (If you are using kickstart does that mean you should point to
> > kickstart/ instead of os/ in the ks file?)
> > 
> > I could not find a mention of it in the release notes.
> > 
> > E.g. under
> > 
> > centos/8.0.1905/BaseOS/x86_64/
> > 
> > my nearest mirror has
> > kickstart/
> > os/
> > 
> > 
> > Cheers
> > 
> > Anthony Alba
> > _______________________________________________
> > CentOS-devel mailing list
> > CentOS-devel at centos.org
> > https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos-devel
> >
> 
> I have a todo item to explain this a little bit better on the wiki.
> 
> Basically the problem is, starting on Day 1 we have the os/ repository 
> populated with GA packages *and* updates (0-day updates and those that 
> came in while we were in the middle of the build process). os/ will 
> continue to receive updates.
> 
> If you use the os/ repository, your install will use those updates as 
> part of the install, but some folks would prefer to install using GA 
> content, and perform updates later. That's where the kickstart/ repo 
> comes in. 
> 
> The kickstart/ repository is a snapshot of GA content, and will not 
> change until upstream does another point-release.
> 

I would note that this is closer to how Upstream provides repositories. It avoids having to download separate repo data for base and updates, while simultaneously making it easier to kickstart a fully up-to-date system.

V/r,
James Cassell