Re: [PATCH] nfs.man: document requirements for NFS mounts in a container

[Steve Dickson <steved@redhat.com>]

Hey!

On 3/3/22 8:13 PM, NeilBrown wrote:
> On Fri, 04 Mar 2022, Trond Myklebust wrote:
>> On Thu, 2022-03-03 at 14:26 +1100, NeilBrown wrote:
>>> On Wed, 02 Mar 2022, Chuck Lever III wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> The remaining part of this text probably should be
>>>> part of the man page for Ben's tool, or whatever is
>>>> coming next.
>>>
>>> My position is that there is no need for any tool.  The total amount
>>> of
>>> code needed is a couple of lines as presented in the text below.  Why
>>> provide a wrapper just for that?
>>> We *cannot* automatically decide how to find a name or where to store
>>> a
>>> generated uuid, so there is no added value that a tool could provide.
>>>
>>> We cannot unilaterally fix container systems.  We can only tell
>>> people
>>> who build these systems of the requirements for NFS.
>>>
>>
>> I disagree with this position. The value of having a standard tool is
>> that it also creates a standard for how and where the uniquifier is
>> generated and persisted.
>>
>> Otherwise you have to deal with the fact that you may have a systemd
>> script that persists something in one file, a Dockerfile recipe that
>> generates something at container build time, and then a home-made
>> script that looks for something in a different location. If you're
>> trying to debug why your containers are all generating the same
>> uniquifier, then that can be a problem.
> 
> I don't see how a tool can provide any consistency.
> Is there some standard that say how containers should be built, and
> where tools can store persistent data?  If not, the tool needs to be
> configured, and that is not importantly different from bash being
> configured with a 1-line script to write out the identifier.
> 
> I'm not strongly against a tools, I just can't see the benefit.
I think I agree with this... Thinking about it... having a command that
tries to manipulate different containers in different ways just
seems like a recipe for disaster... I just don't see how a command would
ever get it right... Hell we can't agree on its command's name
much less what it will do. :-)

So I like idea of documenting when needs to happen in the
different types of containers... So I think the man page
is the way to go... and I think it is the safest way to go.

Chuck, if you would like tweak the verbiage... by all means.

Neil, will be a V2 for man page patch from this discussion
or should I just take the one you posted? If you do post
a V2, please start a new thread.

steved.