Changes/Modular Server

Modular Server

Summary

The Modularity Working Group, Factory 2.0, Base Runtime, and Server Working Group would like to propose using the modular infrastructure for creating and delivering the Fedora Server Edition for Fedora 27. While we are still working through some of the kinks leading up to the release of Fedora 26, we believe that the changes to the infrastructure and technology implementations will be available with sufficient time to harden the components in time for the 27 release.

Owner

• Name: Langdon White
• Email: langdon@fedoraproject.org
• Release notes owner: Simon Clark (sclark)
• Edition: Server Edition
• Responsible WG: Modularity WG & Server WG

Current status

• Targeted release: Fedora 27
• Last updated: 2017-11-03
• Tracker bug: #1474931

Detailed Description

The modularity effort is fairly well known and significantly more information may be found on the Modularity Website or the YouTube Channel. In short, modularity is attempting to disconnect the lifecycle of applications from 1) each other 2) the operating system while still maintaining the ease of use of a typical Linux Distro.

This change proposal is to promote the work done in the Boltron Release (preview container image in advance of the F26 release) to Fedora mainline through the Fedora Server Edition. We will also be working with the community to complete the available content for Fedora Server Edition as modules.

Other edition and spins will not change at this point; users who want to create a Fedora server (as opposed to capital-S Fedora Server) without Modularity can use one of these other spins, including the Fedora Cloud Base image, or else use the "everything netinst".

Benefit to Fedora

Scoping the question to this Change Proposal, the benefit to Fedora is to release the multi-lifecycle model for real users. We can prove that most day-to-day operations will be unchanged and that users can opt in to more advanced use cases.

Scope

• Proposal owners:
  • The Modularity WG, Factory 2.0, Base Runtime, and Server WG teams all have contributions to this effort. The work that each team is doing is significant and wide ranging. We are hoping to:
    • collect and incorporate feedback in to the system management experience of using modules (through dnf)
    • modularize a significant amount of the content available for Fedora Server (focusing on current Server roles)
    • define tools and best practices for implementing modules and keeping them up to date

• Other developers:
  • Packagers are already working on modularizing applications;
  • the Modularity WG will provide like to support additional package maintainers in modularizing their applications

• Release engineering:

• • See Changes/ModularRelease.

• • List of deliverables:
    • This change replaces the Fedora 26 Server release-blocking deliverables with exactly the same things (DVDs and netinst images) but delivered via Modularity instead of the traditional process.
  • Although we want to enable changes to module lifecycles over time, it is worth noting that this Change Proposal does NOT change the normal 13 month commitment for anything in the release.

• Policies and guidelines:

• • New guidelines are required, they are currently in Draft state and we will be collecting feedback to them during the F26 lifecycle for ratification prior to F27.
    • Fedora_Packaging_Guidelines_for_Modules
    • Container:Guidelines
  • At this point there are no changes expected to existing guidelines

• Trademark approval: N/A (not needed for this Change)

Upgrade/compatibility impact

• We are still gathering requirements and evaluating the feasibility of in-place upgrades from prior versions of Fedora. If upgrading from existing Fedora Server to the new modular Server is not reasonably obtainable, we propose that on upgrade, existing Fedora Server installations become generic non-Edition systems

How To Test

Normal system operation (sort of). We are in the process of documenting a full user test script based on the Boltron Preview. We will be working directly with QE to work through test days during the F26 lifecycle and will prepare testing requests for post-f27 launch. A significant part of this work is around improving automated testing.

Tests/comments/feedback should be filed in the Modularity Pagure repo for comments about modularity. Issues with individual modules should be filed with the appropriate component in bugzilla (or as specified by the Factory 2 team).

User Experience

We expect the default user experience to be transparent with interactions that are non-standard being an optional experience. The documentation regarding the usage of the new experiences including walkthroughs and demos will be found in the Modularity docs.

Dependencies

N/A

Contingency Plan

• Contingency mechanism: (What to do? Who will do it?): Normal rpm/compose build process (vs modular build process)
• Contingency deadline: Needs discussion
• Blocks release? Yes
• Blocks product? Server Edition

Documentation

Modularity docs.