Re: [Qemu-devel] Publishing binary images for testing

[Cleber Rosa <crosa@redhat.com>]

On Fri, Aug 16, 2019 at 12:51:06PM +0200, Philippe Mathieu-Daudé wrote:
> ping? :)
> 
> On 6/17/19 7:17 AM, Philippe Mathieu-Daudé wrote:
> > Hi Cleber,
> > 
> > On 5/11/18 4:27 PM, Cleber Rosa wrote:
> >> On 05/11/2018 09:55 AM, Eduardo Habkost wrote:
> >>> (CCing Cleber and avocado-devel in case they have suggestions)
> >>>
> >>> On Tue, May 08, 2018 at 12:47:52PM -0300, Philippe Mathieu-Daudé wrote:
> >>> [...]
> >>>> Ironically I have been using the Gumstix machines quite a lot for the SD
> >>>> 'subsystem' refactor, using the MMC commands in U-Boot (I am unable to
> >>>> reach the Linux userland since the kernel crashes), and plan to add SD
> >>>> integration tests via Avocado.
> >>>>
> >>>> This raises:
> >>>>
> >>>> - What will happens if I add tests downloading running on their compiled
> >>>> u-boot
> >>>> (https://downloads.gumstix.com/images/angstrom/developer/2012-01-22-1750/u-boot.bin)
> >>>> and the company decides to remove this old directory?
> >>>> Since sometimes old open-source software are hard to rebuild with recent
> >>>> compilers, should we consider to use a public storage to keep
> >>>> open-source (signed) blobs we can use for integration testing?
> >>>
> >>> I think a maintained repository of images for testing would be
> >>> nice to have.  We need to be careful to comply with the license
> >>> of the software being distributed, though.
> >>>
> >>> If the images are very small (like u-boot.bin above), it might be
> >>> OK to carry them in qemu.git, just like the images in pc-bios.
> >>>
> >>>>
> >>>> Avocado has a 'vmimage library' which could be extended, adding support
> >>>> for binary url + detached gpg signatures from some QEMU maintainers?

Yes, although I believe a stronger distinction between the images
originally targeted by avocado.utils.vmimage and those other images
should probably exist.  One of the reasons that make me think so is
that the images obtained through vmimage *should* be configurable by
the accompanying avocado.utils.cloudinit library.

> >>>
> >>> Requiring a signature makes the binaries hard to replace.  Any
> >>> specific reason to suggest gpg signatures instead of just a
> >>> (e.g.) sha256 hash?
> >>>
> >>>>
> >>>> (I am also using old Gentoo/Debian packaged HPPA/Alpha Linux kernel for
> >>>> Avocado SuperIO tests, which aren't guaranteed to stay downloadable
> >>>> forever).
> >>>
> >>> Question for the Avocado folks: how this is normally handled in
> >>> avocado/avocado-vt?  Do you maintain a repository for guest
> >>> images, or you always point to their original sources?
> >>>
> >>
> >> For pure Avocado, the vmimage library attempts to fetch, by default, the
> >> latest version of a guest image directly from the original sources.
> >> Say, a Fedora image will be downloaded by default from the Fedora
> >> servers.  Because of that, we don't pay too much attention to the
> >> availability of specific (old?) versions of guest images.
> >>
> >> For Avocado-VT, there are the JeOS images[1], which we keep on a test
> >> "assets" directory.  We have a lot of storage/bandwidth availability, so
> >> it can be used for other assets proven to be necessary for tests.
> >>
> >> As long as distribution rights and licensing are not issues, we can
> >> definitely use the same server for kernels, u-boot images and what not.
> >>
> >> [1] - https://avocado-project.org/data/assets/
> > 
> > 1/ How do we check for distribution rights?
> > 
> > Is it OK for:
> > - a Debian/Fedora image
> > - a compiled Linux kernel (for a Debian/Fedora release)
> >

I think released images are just fine.

FIY, with regards to custom iamges: the Avocado-VT JeOS images are
based on Fedora, and can be recreated with the kickstart files that
are also in-tree.  Making the custom binary file reproducible is,
AFAICT good enough.

> > 2/ Who to ask to add files to this assets directory?
> >

I'd be happy to setup a secure upload mechanism, say, ftp+ssl, so that
"image maintainers" can upload new images.

> > 3/ Can we use a 'webarchive' directory structure?
> > 
> > Such /site/date/original_site_path/file
> >

I don't see why not.

> > 4/ What are the chances that this website disappears? :S
> > 
> > (Someone has to pay for it, and the bandwidth...)

Of course the best scenario would be to rely on some bigger
institution, say an University decides to host this archive of images,
and others decide to mirror them.  Until then, if it's decided to push
forward the use of the "avocado-project.org" site, the chances of it
going away are basically if I fail to have $5/month to keep it
running, so hopefully (I mean it) this won't be an issue :)

And thans for the ping, although I was really in need of a brick thrown
at my head to wake me up on this thread! :)

- Cleber.

> > 
> > Thanks,
> > 
> > Phil.