Open Stack

----- Original Message -----
> From: "Lorin Hochstein" <lorin at nimbisservices.com>
> To: "Tom Fifield" <tom at openstack.org>
> Cc: openstack-docs at lists.openstack.org
> Sent: Tuesday, July 9, 2013 10:53:34 PM
> Subject: Re: [Openstack-docs] Linking to external install guides
> 
> On Tue, Jul 9, 2013 at 10:37 PM, Tom Fifield <tom at openstack.org> wrote:
> 
> > On 10/07/13 12:20, Lorin Hochstein wrote:
> >
> >> On Tue, Jul 9, 2013 at 8:34 PM, Tom Fifield <tom at openstack.org
> >> <mailto:tom at openstack.org>> wrote:
> >>
> >>     On 10/07/13 00:48, Steve Gordon wrote:
> >>
> >>         My understanding is that at least RPM/DEB packages are likely to
> >>         be available *very* shortly after the actual release for Havana.
> >>
> >>
> >>     I'll take a bullish line, which may not necessarily be achievable:
> >>
> >>     """
> >>     On the day that the press release for Havana is sent out, we need
> >>     -by hook or by crook!- to have installation instructions for RHEL
> >>     and Ubuntu, and ideally SUSE and Debian too.
> >>     """
> >>
> >>     I'm thinking: "if you can't install the software, then it's not
> >>     really a release, is it?". Release day is our time to shine :)
> >>
> >>     So, feasibility/sanity check:
> >>     * This is unlikely to be provided in time by our friends at RH or
> >>     Canonical, leaving:
> >>     Option 1: Delay the press release
> >>     Option 2: DIY
> >>
> >>     Personally, I think Option 1 would be terrible for the community's
> >>     "feelings", and tying OpenStack to particular product offerings is
> >>     not something we should probably be doing :)
> >>
> >>     So, for me, that leaves Option 2 :)
> >>
> >>     but, it's early in the morning .... are there other alternatives?
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Tom:
> >>
> >> Just to be explicit here, I can imagine three scenarios for "release day"
> >>
> >> 1. Downstream packages haven't been released yet  :(
> >> 2. Downstream packages have been released, but there are no accompanying
> >> install docs   :|
> >> 3. Downstream packages and accompanying install docs have been released
> >>  :)
> >>
> >> For "DIY", are you talking about scenario #1 or scenario #2 (or both?).
> >>
> >> Steve alluded to scenario 1 being unlikely, but we should probably talk
> >> to the distros to see how they plan to align their release packages to
> >> the official OpenStack release.
> >>
> >
> > Yup, I think in practice #2 is what happens, and that was the one I was
> > referring to :)
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > Tom
> >
> >
> >
> OK, I grudgingly admit that we probably need to write install docs *at
> least* for Ubuntu, since I think it's unlikely that Canonical will produce
> install docs for Havana by release day.
> 
> (Side question: Does Canonical maintain their own install docs for Grizzly?
> They have an impressive-looking OpenStack page, but I don't see install
> docs linked on it anywhere:
> http://www.ubuntu.com/cloud/private-cloud/openstack).
> 
> For RedHat (and SUSE), I think we should contact their doc maintainers and
> ask them if they'll have updated release docs ready on the same day that
> their packages are ready. No sense duplicating effort if they'll be ready
> quickly enough. If they won't be ready, we should *sigh* also probably do
> an RPM-based install guide. Perhaps I'm naively optimistic, but I'm hoping
> that these distros will be ready quickly with docs since they have a strong
> incentive to reduce deployment effort.
> 
> Steve, any insights into how quickly RedHat plans to release their install
> docs for Havana?
> 
> Lorin

For RDO the current plan is (as I understand it) to provide RPMs for each of the Havana milestones and update installation instructions on the Wiki at http://openstack.redhat.com as we go, this generally provides a bare bones guide to getting up and running using the PackStack utility. RDO users that want more flexible deployments currently tend to head to http://docs.openstack.org/ (or at least that is my impression from watching the forums and ask.openstack.org) which is why I want to help with improving the installation guides there for users of Fedora and EL-based distributions.

The documents that appear at https://access.redhat.com/site/documentation/Red_Hat_OpenStack/ would likely be published some time later, I can't really allude to the exact time frames for that unfortunately. A key point here that I brought up in an earlier thread is that those guides start to diverge a fair bit from what's currently considered "OpenStack" in terms of installation because deployment is ideally performed using PackStack/Foreman/Puppet rather than manually installing and configuring the packages so there is not necessarily a lot of overlap for the "deployer" user. We do want to collaborate more on user and administrator documentation though, and I personally am still very much interested in contributing to any RPM-based installation material that continues to live on in openstack-manuals. As per Shaun's email I would prefer to see it consolidated into one guide though.

Thanks,

Steve