[tools] [PATCH] mrepo and fuseiso

[Chowdhury, Chandan Dutta (STSD)]

>-----Original Message-----
>From: Dag Wieers [mailto:dag at wieers.com] 
>Sent: Monday, July 09, 2007 5:27 PM
>To: Chowdhury, Chandan Dutta (STSD)
>Cc: tools at lists.rpmforge.net
>Subject: Re: [tools] [PATCH] mrepo and fuseiso
>
>On Mon, 9 Jul 2007, Chowdhury, Chandan Dutta (STSD) wrote:
>
>> I have been using mrepo/yam for more then 2 years now and it 
>has been 
>> a huge help in reducing the time spent on the infrastructure side of 
>> OS deployment. I am using mrepo to deploy rhel3/rhel4/Fedora 
>using ISO 
>> images.
>> 
>> The problem now is that we are reaching the limit of 255 
>> max_loop_device soon. I am already using 230+ loopback devices. 
>> Although a patch has been discussed in the LKML, I am not 
>sure if this 
>> will be available to
>> rhel4 and rhel5 users soon, it might also require us to move 
>to rhel6.
>> 
>> In this minor patch I am proposing to use an alternative to using 
>> loopback devices. I have used Fuseiso (fuse based iso 
>mounting in user
>> space) to alleviate the 255 max loop device limit. The patch 
>does not 
>> change the default behavior of mrepo and mrepo will only use 
>fuse only 
>> if it is configured as the "mountcmd" in the mrepo config file (i.e.
>> main::mountcmd=/usr/bin/fuseiso)
>
>Very cool ! I'm going to add it as is, I have to think about 
>how we can maybe make this more generic in the default case. 
>Fact is that I was already interested in doing this because 
>this way mrepo can be completely used as a user. I didn't 
>expect anyone to reach the maxloop limit :)
>
>
>> I have tested fuseiso on rhel4 and rhel5 (according to fuse 
>home page 
>> it should also work for rhel3) and I was able to mount 1000+ iso 
>> images concurrently. This patch if accepted will provide us 
>with some 
>> breathing space.
>
>Definitely.
>
>
>> Only problem with this approach is I could not use fuseiso 
>with SELinux.
>> But I could use the audit2allow tool to modify my selinux config to 
>> have mrepo working with fuseiso on a selinux enabled system.
>
>SELinux for me is still a problem because I am mostly ignorant 
>how it works. I should probably invest some time learning SELinux :(
>
>
>> I am also planning to submit a small how-to for installing and
>> configuring fuseiso with mrepo soon.
>
>Nice. I'd prefer asciidoc, but will convert with your 
>permission if not.
>
>
>> Please let me know your view on this and/or if something needs to be
>> reworked with the patch.
>
>Will do when I integrate the patch.
>
>Thanks a lot !
>--   dag wieers,  dag at wieers.com,  http://dag.wieers.com/   --
>[all I want is a warm bed and a kind word and unlimited power]
>

Hello Dag,

Thanks a lot for accepting the changes. 
I am in the process of writing the How-To.
I will try to submit it in asciidoc.

Thanks again for the quick response and accepting the patch.

Regards
Chandan