Gluster users - Mar 2015 - Does anyone care if GlusterFS 3.7 does not work on older distributions?

Hi all,

As you might have noticed, we're getting quite well along with the
upcoming 3.7 release. There are many new features and improvements, but
these also require additional dependencies on the Linux (and other OS)
distributions.

Because keeping support for older operating systems is quite time
consuming, we would like to reduce the supported versions of operating
systems. Some of the issues that we already noticed:

- RHEL-5 (and clones) do not have all dependencies for the -server
  components (already no geo-replication on EL5).

- Ubuntu Precise has an old RDMA stack, potential other too old versions
  of packages too (already an issue with 3.6.2).

We try to have the glusterfs-3.6 client-side protocol compatible with
the 3.7 server-side, but we can not guarantee that this stays possible
longterm.

We need to know who is planning to deploy GlusterFS 3.7 (on modern
distributions) and would require access over the native/fuse (not
NFS/Samba) protocol to the 3.7 servers. If there is very little
interest, and no strong demand, we will likely not provide glusterfs-3.7
packages for these older distributions.

I would like to remind everyone that when GlusterFS 3.7 gets released,
version 3.4 will become unmaintained and updating to 3.5 or newer should
get planned rather sooner than later. Version 3.5 will be maintained
until 4.0 (or 3.8?) gets released, which is not planned for this year
anymore.

If you have a strong desire for GlusterFS 3.7 clients on older
distributions, contact us as soon as possible (definitely within the
next two/three weeks) so that we can look into the matter. Please
respond to this list with your explanation and requirements, or if that
is not suitable for whatever reason, email me directly.

Thanks,
Niels

Client side support for 3.7 natively or through compatibility with the 3.6
on Precise would be great. We have a few RHSS servers, which will
presumably get upgraded to GlusterFS3.7 around the end of the year. We have
a bunch of Precise clients which are right now using the 3.5 client from
the ppa. If their life can be stretched for another year or so by 3.6/3.7
client ppas, that would be much appreciated.

Minor note: The official glusterfs documentation
mentions ppa:semiosis/ubuntu-glusterfs-3.5 as the ppa for ubuntu. It looks
like this was taken down sometime last month. I guess
https://launchpad.net/~gluster has the official ppas now ? Since there was
another thread about documentation, it would be a good idea to edit this.
Also, why was the old ppa was taken down completely as opposed to making it
a mirror of the newer ones ?


On Thu, Mar 26, 2015 at 2:48 PM, Niels de Vos <ndevos at redhat.com>
wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> As you might have noticed, we're getting quite well along with the
> upcoming 3.7 release. There are many new features and improvements, but
> these also require additional dependencies on the Linux (and other OS)
> distributions.
>
> Because keeping support for older operating systems is quite time
> consuming, we would like to reduce the supported versions of operating
> systems. Some of the issues that we already noticed:
>
> - RHEL-5 (and clones) do not have all dependencies for the -server
>   components (already no geo-replication on EL5).
>
> - Ubuntu Precise has an old RDMA stack, potential other too old versions
>   of packages too (already an issue with 3.6.2).
>
> We try to have the glusterfs-3.6 client-side protocol compatible with
> the 3.7 server-side, but we can not guarantee that this stays possible
> longterm.
>
> We need to know who is planning to deploy GlusterFS 3.7 (on modern
> distributions) and would require access over the native/fuse (not
> NFS/Samba) protocol to the 3.7 servers. If there is very little
> interest, and no strong demand, we will likely not provide glusterfs-3.7
> packages for these older distributions.
>
> I would like to remind everyone that when GlusterFS 3.7 gets released,
> version 3.4 will become unmaintained and updating to 3.5 or newer should
> get planned rather sooner than later. Version 3.5 will be maintained
> until 4.0 (or 3.8?) gets released, which is not planned for this year
> anymore.
>
> If you have a strong desire for GlusterFS 3.7 clients on older
> distributions, contact us as soon as possible (definitely within the
> next two/three weeks) so that we can look into the matter. Please
> respond to this list with your explanation and requirements, or if that
> is not suitable for whatever reason, email me directly.
>
> Thanks,
> Niels
> _______________________________________________
> Gluster-users mailing list
> Gluster-users at gluster.org
> http://www.gluster.org/mailman/listinfo/gluster-users
>
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On 27 March 2015 at 04:48, Niels de Vos <ndevos at redhat.com>
wrote:
> If you have a strong desire for GlusterFS 3.7 clients on older
> distributions, contact us as soon as possible (definitely within the
> next two/three weeks) so that we can look into the matter.
You mention RHEL5 and Ubuntu 12.04LTS Precise as two targets that are
potentially causing problems.

I'm assuming for "newer" targets you're referring to RHEL7,
Ubuntu
14.04LTS Trusty, and similar current long-term releases?

My only objection is when software requires me to start running
non-LTS releases (Ubuntu short term releases, Fedora, etc).  That's a
recipe for pain and heartache in a busy production world.

-Dan

----------------
Dan Mons - R&D Sysadmin
Cutting Edge
http://cuttingedge.com.au