Re: Sysinst GSOC project

Hello Zach!


> My name is Zach Wegner. I am 20 years old, and I attend Austin
> Community College in Austin, TX. I have been selected for the Google
> Summer of Code to help out the NetBSD project.

Great to hear that.  Hands-off installation has sorely been missing
from NetBSD until now.  I wish you the best of luck!

> The most important part of this project is the file format.

While I would not totally agree to this, you are correct that the
file format plays an important role.

> wanting in this format is to be easily readable and editable by
> humans, as well as being very flexible. Because of this, I think it
> would be best to use a very simple, sh script-like format.

Hmmm.... this looks to me like a design that tries to fit artificial
constraints.  (I know that to you these constraints are very real, i.e.
what you can do in the alotted time).

> say so. But again, I don't have the time to implement a very
> complicated parser, and I think the sample format should handle the
> task well, so I'd prefer that we don't have a flamewar over this.

I am not trying to start a flame war here, but have you considered XML?
I don't think I need to list all the advantages that a standardized
machine-readable format has.

Ready-made XML parsers are available, with good C APIs.

> So in conclusion, this is a pretty basic but important project. The
> configuration file will be usable for a long time to come

Exactly.  So please do not reinvent the wheel.  Instead capitalize on
the many tools others have built before you.


Here is a quick XML rendering of your example file:


  ------------------------------------------------------------
  <?xml version="1.0"?>
  <!DOCTYPE sysinst SYSTEM "/usr/share/lib/xml/dtd/netbsd_sysinst.dtd">
  <!-- Configuration file for sysinst   -->
  <!-- Describes a default installation -->


  <!-- Port name. This will be checked against the compiled-in constant -->
  <!-- in the back end. -->

  <sysinst port="amd64">

  <!-- Installation medium: where the installation files come from. -->
  <!-- Some mediums need arguments. CDROM installations need a device -->
  <!-- and a directory on the CD. -->

    <medium name="CD-ROM" dev="/dev/cd0" path="/installation">

  <!-- Kernel name. For this and other fields, a slash in front of an -->
  <!-- option will indicate that the user must still select between the -->
  <!-- ones in the slash-separated list in the front end.  That is, this -->
  <!-- file does not fully describe an installation. This will only be -->
  <!-- in a "default" file, the files generated by sysinst will be -->
  <!-- completely specified. -->

    <kernel>
      <option name="GENERIC"/>
      <option name="GENERIC_MP"/>
      <option name="GENERIC_TINY"/>
    </kernel>

  <!-- Sets. In this example, the compiler set is optional. -->

    <set>
      <option name="BASE"  sel="required"/>
      <option name="ETC"   sel="required"/>
      <option name="COMP"  sel="optional"/>
      <option name="GAMES" sel="required"/>
      <option name="MAN"   sel="required"/>
      <option name="X11"   sel="required"/>

  <!-- Custom sets. These are made available both per-port and by custom -->
  <!-- installation distributions. E.g. someone could distribute NetBSD  -->
  <!-- with a KDE set and a GNOME set, and the user will select between  -->
  <!-- them. Entries with slashes will be present on these custom        -->
  <!-- sysinst.conf's.                                                   -->

      <option name="SOME_AMD_SET" sel="custom"/>
      <option name="KDE"          sel="custom"/>
      <option name="GNOME"        sel="custom"/>
    </set>

    <disks>

  <!-- Partitions, in the main NetBSD partition -->

      <partition name="SWAP" percent="10" minsize="16M" maxsize="1G"/>
      <partition name="/usr" percent="40" minsize="128M"/>
      <partition name="/"    minsize="256M">

  <!-- For this particular conf., the minimum disk size is 16+128+256=400M. -->

    </disks>

  </sysinst>
  ------------------------------------------------------------

I believe this is actually easier to read than your example.

(I hope it will not be wrapped.  I can send it you you directly if
you wish.)


Best regards -- Volker
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Volker A. Brandt                  Consulting and Support for Sun Solaris
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