Thread: spacewalk and postgres

I'm just starting to take a look at Spacewalk as a potential solution
for managing an internal cloud of linux servers...   this is the
opensource version of Redhat's Satellite.     Traditionally its been
hosted on an Oracle database, but they now also support PostgreSQL, but
with this caveat...


        PostgreSQL Pre-Requisites

    In order to get Spacewalk ro run with PostgreSQL database backend,
    you need PostgreSQL 8.4 server installed on the same or different
    machine. UsePostgreSQLServerSetup
    <https://fedorahosted.org/spacewalk/wiki/PostgreSQLServerSetup>as a
    guide to get the server installed and setup.

    Please note that the functionality of Spacewalk on PostgreSQL is
    limited and sooner than later you may hit Internal Server Error.

(from https://fedorahosted.org/spacewalk/wiki/HowToInstall)

not real thrilled with that last line, although I haven't even fired it
up yet to know just how rough it is.

anyways, wondering if anyone in the postgres community is working with
this project to help smooth things out?


--
john r pierce                            N 37, W 122
santa cruz ca                         mid-left coast

John R Pierce <pierce@hogranch.com> writes:
> I'm just starting to take a look at Spacewalk as a potential solution
> for managing an internal cloud of linux servers...   this is the
> opensource version of Redhat's Satellite.     Traditionally its been
> hosted on an Oracle database, but they now also support PostgreSQL, but
> with this caveat...

>     Please note that the functionality of Spacewalk on PostgreSQL is
>     limited and sooner than later you may hit Internal Server Error.

> anyways, wondering if anyone in the postgres community is working with
> this project to help smooth things out?

I'm keeping an eye on it internally to Red Hat, but not really
contributing any significant number of cycles ATM.  My understanding of
the status is that the core stuff works but there are still a lot of
Oracle dependencies in lesser-used nooks and crannies of the software.
They could really use help from people in finding, and even more
importantly patching, those Oracle-isms.  Satellite/Spacewalk is a
remarkably large code base, so it's going to be awhile before the last
such bug is gone.  If you want some kind of promise that you won't hit
any gotchas, you shouldn't use it ... but if you're willing to help fix
whatever you hit, I believe it's usable.

You might want to scan the list archives at
http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/spacewalk-list
http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/spacewalk-devel

if you'd like a deeper dive into what's happening.  The latter list
is where to send any fixes you come up with.

            regards, tom lane

On 07/19/11 7:58 PM, Tom Lane wrote:
> I'm keeping an eye on it internally to Red Hat, but not really
> contributing any significant number of cycles ATM.  My understanding of
> the status is that the core stuff works but there are still a lot of
> Oracle dependencies in lesser-used nooks and crannies of the software.
> They could really use help from people in finding, and even more
> importantly patching, those Oracle-isms.  Satellite/Spacewalk is a
> remarkably large code base, so it's going to be awhile before the last
> such bug is gone.  If you want some kind of promise that you won't hit
> any gotchas, you shouldn't use it ... but if you're willing to help fix
> whatever you hit, I believe it's usable.
>

great, thats what I wanted to hear.    while work is an oracle shop, I
personally hate dealing with oracle and I know we're trying to get away
from it as much as possible, and I'm definately much happier working
with postgres.    I've sort out a few mysql->pg issues in a couple php
projects (drupal, mybb) in the past and submitted bug reports with
proposed fixes...

> You might want to scan the list archives at
> http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/spacewalk-list
> http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/spacewalk-devel
>
> if you'd like a deeper dive into what's happening.  The latter list
> is where to send any fixes you come up with.

I'll remember that.   first, I think I'll install it and figure out how
it all plays, as of right now, I've only spent about 45 minutes browsing
the wiki and such and haven't even had the time to attempt a trial
install.   I'm getting a couple new servers in my lab at work in a
couple weeks, and hope to be able to start using a deployment tool
instead of hand installing everything.

--
john r pierce                            N 37, W 122
santa cruz ca                         mid-left coast