We've discussed this in the past: https://markmail.org/message/lp5pjholfxrqhful https://markmail.org/message/mkoasohxr5vwyt3l
We probably want both CentOS and Ubuntu based built-in (or default user) templates, and some people may even prefer Debian, Fedora or even FreeBSD. I think it would simpler if the built-in template is a single template and based on DistroWatch [1] it seems a Debian based OS may be more preferable for most users. Therefore, either a LTS version of Ubuntu (say Ubuntu 20.04) or even Debian is preferable. The cons of this decision would be to test and fix many smoke tests and component tests. If we prefer Debian (latest LTS), we can actually make the systemvmtemplate cloud-init enabled and use it both as the template for system vms but also guest VMs. For every release, we won't need to maintain two separate templates (a systemvmtemplate and a built-in template) and revisit this issue again in say next 5 years. A Debian (latest LTS) based built-in template may even serve for the CKS feature (so if this is do-able and done right, we'll solve the template issue for systemvms, built-in template and CKS). To summarise: * A CentOS7 based (cloud-init enabled) built-in template would be easiest thing to do (in terms of effort and testing); we already have the packer script that we needs an update - https://github.com/apache/cloudstack/tree/master/tools/appliance/builtin * An Ubuntu 20.04 current/LTS based (cloud-init) template would be something that most users would want; but adds effort on fixing integration tests * A Debian LTS based (cloud-init) template would add effort on fixing integration tests but would serve most of our requirements which I think are: * Users prefer a Debian/Ubuntu based guest OS * The template can be cloud-init enabled to work out of box for SSH acccess * We already have the packer script (https://github.com/apache/cloudstack/tree/master/tools/appliance/systemvmtemplate) that we can extend to build a single template to serve for systemvmtemplate, built-in template and template for CKS as: * Replace and refactor cloud-early-config with a cloud-init equivalent * Install hypervisor-specific guest tools (we already do this for systemvmtemplate) * Remove noncommon packages and instead either build that as a docker image (tar file) or deb files bundled in systemvm.iso (such as JRE, strongswan, docker etc) * Debian templates are big in size, to keep the template size very small and further improve how systemvmtemplates are seeded, we can explore Alpine Linux (or similar?) [1] https://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=popularity Regards, Rohit Yadav Software Architect, ShapeBlue https://www.shapeblue.com ________________________________ From: Abhishek Kumar <abhishek.ku...@shapeblue.com> Sent: Wednesday, June 3, 2020 13:28 To: dev@cloudstack.apache.org <dev@cloudstack.apache.org> Cc: us...@cloudstack.apache.org <us...@cloudstack.apache.org> Subject: [DISCUSS] New default template Hi all, I would like to hear everyone's opinion on a new default template in CloudStack. Currently, we are using CentOS 5.x for different hypervisors but it is quite old(already completed its support life) and either the support for it has been removed (https://github.com/xcp-ng/xcp/wiki/Guest-System-Support) or in legacy (https://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php?deviceCategory=software&details=1&partner=272&releases=448&page=1&display_interval=10&sortColumn=Partner&sortOrder=Asc&testConfig=16) in different hypervisors. Therefore, I think it is time now to move to a newer OS template. In my understanding CentOS7 is the minimum viable choice if we are continuing with CentOS. This can be the preferred choice as we already have tested templates for it on different hypervisors and it has 4 years left in its cycle. We can also explore Ubuntu’s cloud-images of 20.04. And if we want to go with something very light-weight we can think about something like Alpine Linux. Please have your say. Also, do you think this can be included in 4.15 itself so we can have a proper default template for something like XCP-ng 8.x which doesn't support CentOS 5 (and PV VMs)? Regards, Abhishek abhishek.ku...@shapeblue.com www.shapeblue.com<http://www.shapeblue.com> 3 London Bridge Street, 3rd floor, News Building, London SE1 9SGUK @shapeblue rohit.ya...@shapeblue.com www.shapeblue.com 3 London Bridge Street, 3rd floor, News Building, London SE1 9SGUK @shapeblue
