Re: Trying ARK feedback

Berto continues his campaign:

> In the "Customizing your 'team' for your site" section:
> 
>    hosts/ (info about hosts at your site) 
>    We assume you're going to try-ark on just one host. That one host should
>    have an XML file much like the appropriate one in `sample1' (`slicker' is
>    a SPARC Solaris box; `slippy' is an Intel Red Hat Linux box...) 
> 
> So, I thought:  (a) Should the XML file go in the host or the hosts directory?
> And (b) was my failure to make an XML file for my host responsible for the
> errors in my fourth try-ark attempt?

Sorry; another instance of the {package,host}*s* bug.
Here's hoping I've got them now.  Before I go home, I'll
check in everything and refresh all-but-the-front-one web
pages.

> I see the danger in relying on free-floating environment variables, but
> my point remains:  That was a lot of by-hand configuration for my first
> minimalist try-ark exercise.  ...

I'm still musing :-)  The problem is that, one way or
another, you've got to describe a whole site in ARK-speak
(team, host, package "objects").

Looking at it more closely: the "ARK2" machinery makes it
possible to do something nicer.  Consider me on the case --
I promise you will think it 100% better (but maybe not
enough; we'll see...)  [In fact, I'll append my working
sample1 team.xml at the end...]

> Are you philosophically opposed to an /etc/ARK.conf file?
> Or how about an $ARK_SRC/ARK.conf file, that everything
> within $ARK_SRC refers to?  Or perhaps
> $ARK_SRC/<team-name>/ARK.conf?

How about $ARK_SRC/<team-name>/team.xml ?  After all,
something like

<entry name="ARK_SRC"> /workspace/partain/ark </entry>

is just setting a macro variable (for use elsewhere).
Here's the whole glasli1 (a real site) team.xml (modulo the
ark-site-gen stuff):

   <team name="glasli1" xml-version="1">
   <description>
   An Arusha *site*: the Glasgow SLI machines.
   </description>
   <prototypes>	<prototype team="sidai"/>
   </prototypes>
   
   <contacts><list>
     <item>[email protected]</item>
   </list></contacts>
   
   <ark-dirs><table>
     <entry name="ARK_AUTOMOUNT_MAP"> /d </entry>
     <entry name="ARK_SRC"> /workspace/partain/ark </entry>
     <entry name="ARK_STATE"> /d/ark-state </entry>
     <entry name="LOCAL"> /usr/local </entry>
     <entry name="LOCAL_DEPLOY"> /usr/local/.-ark-deploy </entry>
     <entry name="OUR"> /our </entry>
     <entry name="OUR_DEPLOY"> /.-ark-deploy </entry>
     <entry name="ROOT_DEPLOY"> /.-ark-deploy-root </entry>
     <entry name="VENDOR_STUFF"> /d/vendor-stuff </entry>
   </table></ark-dirs>
   
   <ark-sysadmin-group> sliadmin </ark-sysadmin-group>
   </team>

Very little of that can be "figured out".  You could say it
in a different form in another file, but I don't that
getting us far.  Am I off beam here?

> ... In a full-fledged ARK setup, will this sort of by-hand
> basic path editing be not much more than for a minimalist
> try-ark setup?

See glasli1 example above.  Looks easy enough to me :-)

> Even at this very early stage, I think/hope you can see a
> bit better now the importance of investing time and effort
> to installation and setup, making the docs clear and
> accurate, and making the procedure as easy and painless as
> possible.  It pays big dividends now and into the future.

Agreed; let's see how you like the next iteration.  I
probably won't finish it tonight.

Will

=== working sample1/team.xml ==========================

<team name="sample1" xml-version="1">
<description>
  A Sidai-style sample Arusha *site*
</description>

<contacts><list>
  <item>[email protected]</item>
</list></contacts>

<!-- *** CONFIGURE-ME *** -->
<test-dir>/workspace/partain/try-ark</test-dir>
<ark-src-dir>/workspace/partain/ark</ark-src-dir>
<open-src-dir>/d/open-src</open-src-dir>
<solo-host>slicker</solo-host>
<solo-host-type>sparc-solaris</solo-host-type>
<!-- *** END OF: CONFIGURE-ME *** -->

<ark-dirs>
  <param name="TEST_DIR">@team:test-dir@</param>
  <param name="SRC_DIR">@team:ark-src-dir@</param>
  <table>
  <entry name="ARK_SRC"> @param:SRC_DIR@ </entry>
  <entry name="ARK_STATE"> @param:TEST_DIR@/ark-state </entry>
  <entry name="OUR"> @param:TEST_DIR@/our </entry>
  <entry name="OUR_DEPLOY"> @param:TEST_DIR@/ark-deploy-host1 </entry>
  </table>
</ark-dirs>
</team>