-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Chris Lieb wrote: > I have read the guide on gentoo-wiki about setting up portage to work > over NFS[0] and have it mostly working. I have two issues that I would > like to work out: > > 1) I use sync-eix to update portage and my overlays (via layman). I > want the client to still be able to run sync-eix, but have it only run > `emerge --metadata` (no `emerge --sync` or `layman --sync ALL`). What > do I need to change in the eix-sync.conf? (Man, that's a long man page :) ) > > Better yet, since my overlays are all in the exported NFS filesystem > (hence, the eix database would be the same across all clients), is it > possible to export my eix cache by hardlinking it into the NFS share? > If so, how do I make the client's eix use this database instead of the > one at /var/cache/eix?
I got eix working by hardlinking the cache on the server into the NFS share and setting EIX_CACHEFILE in /etc/eixrc on the client to point to the mounted NFS share. All tests show that eix on both the client and server works fine after changing this. > 2) I use the buildpkg feature on both the server and the client since > the client can usually use the packages for its own installations > (getbinpkg). However, sometimes I require different use flags for the > client, but I still want to keep the package locally so I can restore it > later if I need to. I have the NFS share mounted ro to keep the client > from overwriting what is on the server, so I am guessing that portage > will throw some kind of error when it tries to save the package to disk. > > I was thinking of getting around this by using some kind of union mount. > However, I don't understand how union mounts work or if they can be > used for my situation. What I would like is to have some directory, > lets say /var/lib/portage/packages, that I union mount on top of the > exported NFS share, at /mnt/nfs_portage/packages. I noticed in the > Portage w/ SquashFS/aufs howto[1], they used aufs to create a rw layer > on top of a ro SquashFS. This sounds kind of what I want, except it > appears that aufs is memory-backed instead of disk-backed. Is this so? > The clients are all strapped for memory, so a memory-backed fs won't be > feasible. > > [0] http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/Sharing_Portage_over_NFS > [1] http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/Squashed_Portage_Tree After looking into aufs a little more and trying it, I discovered that, in it's current state in the sunrise overlay, cannot fulfill my requirements. The most recent version of aufs does not have support for mounting NFS filesystems (there might be a patch out there for it, but I don't know how to configure this in an ebuild), and the last version of aufs that supports NFS mounts doesn't work with newer kernels. I don't want to do UnionFS since that requires me to patch the kernel, which is more work than I have the time for. Since I don't see any other options for stackable filesystems, I think I'll just set the clients to not produce binpackages and wait for UnionFS to get into the kernel or the Gentoo patchset. Chris Lieb -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJJjGwWAAoJEJWxx7fgsD+CxlcIAJwnlPvibmcdMGW/eNyaekYe U1aGhsi09DoMU43aicKXNQ8p/rC2qwqXfocaxSXiBc4rrkrNpFhfTzPCDjwlhOSb 6fLtBpY7xo3m8CgP+g/Sv2tLFs4T/Gx4EqZ3TxfJh/xnvgUtFdlry+1BDqLPMsnl XMJ5zetuJYZiOujoL4ZG8dS4Od0rVkomKegV0kP5pdiUbcdUN3tNMGMpa4pLvuIA 5DJtUfZk3Iyi5CyEqB/zNlUCmNS9z2hXHNw9y3pOVDQoeSCiufo+fGE8pUr6wXr9 sOy6EmmPvO5NQN/Z244smeWCgP8wNG6YSWEZik3lLU3Edw23VdeWA9KhOgNXAiQ= =ypMH -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
