Two Week Atomic

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It is still under construction and content may change. Do not rely on the information on this page.

Summary

Fedora Atomic Host is an implementation of the Project Atomic pattern for a specialized operating system for the deployment of containerized applications. For the past two Fedora releases, we've included an Atomic Host cloud image as a non-blocking deliverable. However, upstream Atomic is moving very fast — by the end of the alpha, beta, final stabilization cycle Fedora uses, the released artifact is basically obsolete. Additionally, the Project Atomic team at Red Hat would like to do their ongoing development work in the Fedora upstream, and the six-month release cycle does not lend itself to that.

This change moves Atomic away from the main Fedora 6-month distribution release, and instead to separate releases every two weeks on a new web site, http://atomic.fedoraproject.org/

Owners

Name: Matthew Miller Colin Walters
Email: mattdm@fedoraproject.org
cosigners wanted!
Release notes owner:

Current status

Targeted release: Fedora 23 (but actually ideally will start with F22, long before F23 release)
Last updated: 2015-06-16
Tracker bug: <will be assigned by the Wrangler>

Detailed Description

Delivery

1. Move Atomic away from the main Fedora 6-month distribution release, including:

Removal from http://getfedora.org/
F23 atomic images won't be on the regular mirrors

2. Updated Fedora Atomic Host images produced every two weeks, and presented at:

New website at http://atomic.fedoraproject.org/
Images at http://alt.fedoraproject.org/pub/alt/fedora-atomic/

Image Production

1. Images will be produced nightly (See Release Engineering Ticket #6196.)

qcow2 / raw.xz
vagrant variant
(Installer ISO and PXE-to-Live?)

2. These images will be built using Anaconda's ostree-target mode from a nightly tree built from the current Fedora release (i.e., currently Fedora 22) plus updates — this may include updates-testing.

will use current-release anaconda for this
may need a mechanism to include an updates.img

3. When the next Fedora release (e.g., F23) branches, those images will also start production (but may not be the target for release; see below)

Testing

Testing will be almost entirely automated and will not require extra resources from the QA team.

Whenever a new image is produced, a listener will receive the associated message on the Fedora message bus
a battery of tests will be automatically executed (initially using tunir (the goal is to migrate to Tasktron when that is ready)
test results will be fed back to fedmsg
and available on a dashboard somewhere

If no image is successfully produced, a tracker bug should be automatically filed
- if an open tracker bug already exists, just add a comment rather than filing a new one
- if such a tracker bug is open, a successful build should auto-close it
Of course, QA team expertise and help is always welcome
There should also be a mechanism for manually marking an image as failed even if it passes the automatic tests

Release

As with testing, the goal is for this process to be entirely automatic (after initial development, of course).

1. Every two weeks, a process will scan the fedmsg history for image builds which have passed the tests, and

copy to https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/alt/fedora-atomic/
upload to EC2 and other providers via Fedimg
publish links to download or launch to http://atomic.fedoraproject.org/
- move older links to archive
send an automated announcement email

2. If no image passed the tests since the previous image was posted:

leave link to previous image
include warning text that this is stale
link to most recent failure-tracking bug (see above)
decision! either:
- a. rerun nightly until a successful image is found
- b. just skip this cycle, to keep releases predicable

3. Bonus feature: ability to revoke a published image

connected to the ability to manually fail an image
on that trigger, rescan back for previous-good image
update website linking to that, warning that the previous one was bad

Docs and Website

The http://atomic.fedoraproject.org/ website will need initial design and creation, of course, but after that it is intended to be automated; no one should have to update links automatically. It should be a very simple design, with pointers to Fedora docs (hopefully, soon, new short-easy-docs website) and to http://projectatomic.io/

Naming and Trademark

We would like to use the name "Fedora Atomic Host", and phrasing like "Fedora Atomic Host, based on Fedora 22". This highlights the fact that while this project is under the Fedora umbrella, it isn't part of the traditional distribution release cycle. (The various images will be distinguished by date rather than by number.)

Fedora Atomic Host was previously presented as part of the general Fedora release under Fedora Cloud, but this new, separate approach should get council approval under the Trademark Guidelines for new combinations of unmodified Fedora software.

Marketing

The Cloud WG had previously considered making Fedora Atomic Host its main offering, however at present Atomic is not ready to fill that role, as it is changing too fast and not flexible enough for all use cases the Cloud WG targets. The Cloud WG / Cloud SIG will need to find other selling points. It may be that after several cycles, Atomic will mature enough to be the primary Fedora Cloud offering.

The two-week cycle means no big semi-annual PR blitz, but interesting new features and functionality should come rather frequently. This may provide an opportunity for showcasing Fedora in the middle of our development cycle, when Fedora usually doesn't get much press.

Benefit to Fedora

Fedora Atomic Host puts Fedora in the spotlight as a leader in modern operating system innovation
Fedora becomes the proper upstream for Atomic Host development
Early-adopters interested in collaborating on Atomic development have a public place to do so
Fedora users interested in Atomic get a better experience

Scope

Proposal owners

Update koji for nightly image builds (in conjunction with Rel-Eng; see below)

Create automatic test system

listener for successful builds
automatic test execution
results to fedmsg
results dashboard
mechanism to mark a build as bad even if automatic tests pass

Automatic filing of ticket or bug if there are no successful builds

Create automatic release system

every two weeks, scan for images which pass all tests
integration with fedimg
upload to alt.fpo
update website
email announcement
fallback mechanism for no builds in two weeks

Create new website if websites team unavailable for this effort

Coordination, cheerleading: Matthew Miller

uh, help wanted, y'all

Other developers

Websites:
- Drop Atomic from http://getfedora.org/ for F23 (and possibly before)
- Perhaps a sidebar / banner linking to new http://atomic.fedoraproject.org/
- New http://atomic.fedoraproject.org/ needs creation — we'll need help from the websites team or need to find someone else interested
Design:
- Help with new website
- Possibly new logo

Cloud SIG:
- Help with tunir and the automatic testing component
- Fedimg integration with the auto-release tool

Quality Assurance:
- Help with tests would be awesome

Release engineering

The primary release engineering effort is the nightly production of images. The current release engineering tools have all the parts needed to do this, but have never been used in that way before, so some development effort is required to enable the production of current + updates nightlies. (This work, however, many also benefit other areas of the project, like updated Cloud Base images or even Workstation live CDs.)

Additionally, as described above, the tool to automatically ship auto-accepted images every two weeks logically falls under the rel-eng banner.

Adam Miller, on the release engineering team, is specifically prioritizing this work.