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* Name: [[ | * Name: [[Ian Kent]] | ||
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* Email: raven@themaw.net | * Email: raven@themaw.net | ||
Revision as of 04:09, 6 March 2014
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Add amd map parser to autofs
Summary
The am-utils package provides automount services for automount maps that use an amd format but the am-utils project has not been actively maintained for quite a while now. The am-utils package in Fedora has significant problems that are not easily resolved so an amd format parser is to be added to the autofs package.
Owner
- Name: Ian Kent
- Email: raven@themaw.net
- Release notes owner:
Current status
- Targeted release: Fedora 21
- Last updated: 6 Mar 2014
- Tracker bug: <will be assigned by the Wrangler>
Detailed Description
The am-utils package provides automount services for automount maps that use an amd format but the am-utils project has not been actively maintained for quite a while now. The am-utils package in Fedora has significant problems that are not easily resolved so an amd format parser is to be added to the autofs package.
The goal is to implement enough of the am-utils amd map parsing functionality to cover a large portion of the usage cases provided by the am-utils package. Once this is done it will be up to users to describe the missing am-utils feature they need which will then be considered for addition in the upstream implementation.
Benefit to Fedora
Once there has been exposure to community and additional functionality requests considered, evaluated and perhaps implemented we can evaluate the need to retain am-utils in the Fedora distribution. The goal is to eliminate the need for inclusion of the largely unmaintained am-utils package.
Scope
The implementation of this functionality is restricted to the autofs package.
Some areas of this change will require changes to code used by common autofs code and it will also leverage existing autofs functionality but there will be a high level of code separation because of the way parse modules are added within the autofs package.
Initially the change will be added as a path series to the autofs package, later when an upstream beta is released the source will be updated, finally when autofs-5.1.0 is released the source will again be updated. The release schedule has not been decided yet but the plan is to release a beta soon followed by 5.1.0 with the timing dependant on community feedback. Not all the changes (planned for 5.1.0 but not the amd parser itself) will be included in 5.1.0, they will be added as time permits via minor version updates. This is because the amd parser is considered an important feature and needs to be made available sooner rather than later.
- Proposal owners:
Upstream the change is ready for committing to the master branch and a beta released. If the beta is released soon enough updating the Fedora autofs package source is all that will be needed. If not then the existing patch series can be added to the autofs package in the mean time.
- Other developers: N/A (not a System Wide Change)
- Release engineering: N/A (not a System Wide Change)
- Policies and guidelines: N/A (not a System Wide Change)
Upgrade/compatibility impact
There will be significant changes to the autofs configuration sub-system to provide relevant am-utils configuration. Users that want to use this functionality will need to pay attention to this.
Existing configurations for people not using the new parser should continue to function as they did previously.
Part of the configuration changes involve splitting the autofs configuration into init configuration and daemon configuration with the daemon configuration moved to the /etc directory. After reading the new autofs configuration the old location configuration is also read to provide backward compatibility while uses update to the new configuration. One problem is that if a user uses the new functionality and doesn't pay attention to updating the configuration changes to the new configuration may be overridden by changes in the old configuration. There's no way to maintain backward compatibility and not have this problem but it is much better to not disrupt existing usage and require users pay attention to what needs to be done if they wish to use the new parser.
N/A (not a System Wide Change)
How To Test
Test examples need to be constructed and and some simple examples will be described here when the change is added to autofs. Most of the maps used during development are private and cannot be released so we will need to develop our own.
N/A (not a System Wide Change)
User Experience
N/A (not a System Wide Change)
Dependencies
There is one kernel change that is recommended when using the amd parser. It has been included in 3.14.0 rc kernel and so should be included in Fedora 21. This change is not required for function of the new parser, it is just strongly recommended.
N/A (not a System Wide Change)
Contingency Plan
- Contingency mechanism: (What to do? Who will do it?) N/A (not a System Wide Change)
- Contingency deadline: N/A (not a System Wide Change)
- Blocks release? N/A (not a System Wide Change), Yes/No
- Blocks product? product <-- Applicable for Changes that blocks specific product release/Fedora.next -->
The change is largely done upstream but if it doesn't meet user requirements we will revert back to the autofs-5.0 release. The autofs-5.0 release will continue to be supported for the foreseeable future and simpler new features may also still be added but significant new features probably will only be added to the master branch (autofs-5.1.0).
Documentation
One aspect of making this change available in Fedora (and as a beta upstream) is to obtain user review and feedback of the package man pages and the included README for use of amd format maps.
N/A (not a System Wide Change)
Release Notes
A summary of the points covered in the package README for use of amd format maps will be sufficient and will be added here as part of adding the functionality to Fedora.