Re: Debian and our frenemies of containers and userland repos

[Ian Jackson <ijackson@chiark.greenend.org.uk>]

Paul Wise writes ("Re: Debian and our frenemies of containers and userland repos"):
> On Sun, Oct 6, 2019 at 7:23 PM Simon McVittie wrote:
> > FYI, this is because autopkgtest has an abstraction for multiple
> > container/virtualization mechanisms (lxc, lxd, qemu, schroot)
> 
> It seems like this abstraction should be split out of the autopkgtest
> source and then depended on by autopkgtest.

I agree.  I was the original designer of this interface and the
original author of autopkgtest.  I put the virtualisation abstractions
in src:autopkgtest just because it was convenient, not for any
principled reason.  I chose the name pattern "adt-virt-*".  I put
"adt" in it to avoid it being too much of a namespace grab, not
because this interface was intended only for the use of autopktest.

I think the current autopkgtest maintainer is not so keen on this
abstraction.  I would love it if we could split it out from the
autopkgtest package and I would volunteer to maintain it.

Martin, would such a move have your support ?

> Do any other such abstraction layers exist?

The closest I was aware of at the time was libvirt, which is not
really useable in the same way.  I think the interface I designed and
which has subsequently been significantly improved, is a good one, and
we should continue to develop and enhance it.

Thanks,
Ian.

-- 
Ian Jackson <ijackson@chiark.greenend.org.uk>   These opinions are my own.

If I emailed you from an address @fyvzl.net or @evade.org.uk, that is
a private address which bypasses my fierce spamfilter.