Libguestfs - Nov 2021 - libguestfs language bindings for CentOS/RHEL 9

On Wed, Nov 10, 2021 at 08:46:06AM -0500, Neal Gompa
wrote:
> Hey Richard,
>
> I'm looking to use the libguestfs Python, PHP, and Go bindings on
> CentOS Stream 9, but it seems that these are not available right
> now. Could they be made available in CentOS/RHEL 9, if not, what was
> the reason for not shipping them?  I believe these are shipped in
> Fedora today.
Hi Neal, answer depends on the particular bindings.

For python3-libguestfs, we have a BZ to move these back to AppStream,
so they should be usable.  This should be done pretty soon:

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2019914

For PHP, the bindings are currently broken upstream.  Patches
welcome etc ...

For Golang I think most people are anticipating that you'll
"vendor"
(ie. bundle) the bindings in your code.  While this is stupid, the
language effectively forces you to do that.  A longer term plan may
look more like what we recently did with the libnbd bindings, but
we're not there yet.

Search "golang" here:
https://listman.redhat.com/archives/libguestfs/2021-November/thread.html

Rich.
> Thanks in advance and best regards,
> 
> --
> Neal Gompa
> Senior DevOps Engineer
> Datto, Inc.
> www.datto.com
-- 
Richard Jones, Virtualization Group, Red Hat http://people.redhat.com/~rjones
Read my programming and virtualization blog: http://rwmj.wordpress.com
virt-builder quickly builds VMs from scratch
http://libguestfs.org/virt-builder.1.html

On Wed, Nov 10, 2021 at 9:00 AM Richard W.M. Jones <rjones at redhat.com>
wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 10, 2021 at 08:46:06AM -0500, Neal Gompa wrote:
> > Hey Richard,
> >
> > I'm looking to use the libguestfs Python, PHP, and Go bindings on
> > CentOS Stream 9, but it seems that these are not available right
> > now. Could they be made available in CentOS/RHEL 9, if not, what was
> > the reason for not shipping them?  I believe these are shipped in
> > Fedora today.
>
> Hi Neal, answer depends on the particular bindings.
>
> For python3-libguestfs, we have a BZ to move these back to AppStream,
> so they should be usable.  This should be done pretty soon:
>
> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2019914
>
> For PHP, the bindings are currently broken upstream.  Patches
> welcome etc ...
>
>
Is there a particular report indicating what's broken upstream that I can
look at? I see that the bindings are built in Fedora against PHP 8.0 (which
RHEL 9 ships with), so I somewhat expect them to work.

> For Golang I think most people are anticipating that you'll
"vendor"
> (ie. bundle) the bindings in your code.  While this is stupid, the
> language effectively forces you to do that.  A longer term plan may
> look more like what we recently did with the libnbd bindings, but
> we're not there yet.
>
> Search "golang" here:
> https://listman.redhat.com/archives/libguestfs/2021-November/thread.html
>
>
But since libguestfs dynamically generates the bindings for various
languages, is it even workable to separate it like that? You could build it
as a pile of Go binding sources and ship it that way (similar to how other
Go bindings are shipped in Fedora).


-- 
*Neal Gompa*
Senior DevOps Engineer
Datto, Inc.
www.datto.com
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On Wed, Nov 10, 2021 at 11:08:09AM -0500, Neal Gompa
wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 10, 2021 at 9:00 AM Richard W.M. Jones <rjones at
redhat.com> wrote:
>     For PHP, the bindings are currently broken upstream.? Patches
>     welcome etc ...
>
> Is there a particular report indicating what's broken upstream that
> I can look at? I see that the bindings are built in Fedora against
> PHP 8.0 (which RHEL 9 ships with), so I somewhat expect them to
> work.
AIUI they don't actually work properly with PHP 8 and/or needs
significant porting effort.  The references are:

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1935753

https://www.seidengroup.com/2020/12/07/porting-extensions-to-php-8/
>     For Golang I think most people are anticipating that you'll
"vendor"
>     (ie. bundle) the bindings in your code.? While this is stupid, the
>     language effectively forces you to do that.? A longer term plan may
>     look more like what we recently did with the libnbd bindings, but
>     we're not there yet.
> 
>     Search "golang" here:
>    
https://listman.redhat.com/archives/libguestfs/2021-November/thread.html
>
> But since libguestfs dynamically generates the bindings for various
> languages, is it even workable to separate it like that? You could
> build it as a pile of Go binding sources and ship it that way
> (similar to how other Go bindings are shipped in Fedora).
In fact so does libnbd, so the problems were the same.  Nir (CC'd)
can talk a bit more about this.  My interest in golang is >< small.

Rich.
> --
> Neal Gompa
> Senior DevOps Engineer
> Datto, Inc.
> www.datto.com
-- 
Richard Jones, Virtualization Group, Red Hat http://people.redhat.com/~rjones
Read my programming and virtualization blog: http://rwmj.wordpress.com
Fedora Windows cross-compiler. Compile Windows programs, test, and
build Windows installers. Over 100 libraries supported.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/MinGW