Daniel Hilst
5515dfbe3e
builddebs.pl was written against build-ubunturepo but never run beside it. Keeping
the old script in the tree for one more cycle makes the comparison repeatable, and
running the two on xcat-master-ub found four defects that no unit test would have.
* builddebs.pl was not executable. github_action_xcat_test.pl runs
`sudo ./builddebs.pl`, so CI would have failed with Permission denied.
* .deb files were collected after every ARCHITECTURE. dpkg-genbuildinfo reads
the sibling artifacts of the source package it is building, so moving the
amd64 .deb away before ppc64el ran killed the second build with
dpkg-genbuildinfo: error: cannot fstat file ../xcat_..._amd64.deb
Collection now happens once a package's last architecture is done.
* A checkout dirtied by an aborted run poisoned the next one: a leftover
.changes made dpkg-genbuildinfo name an architecture the run had not reached.
The dpkg output is now cleared at start.
* The maintainer was xcat@xcat.org where build-ubunturepo uses
xcat-build@xcat.org, and a Release file in the tree was ignored.
buildrpms.pl WRITES Release, so a pipeline building both would have stamped
its debs with a different release from its rpms. Both corrected.
Equivalence, measured rather than assumed. Both builders were run on
xcat-master-ub from the same tree:
package set identical, 14/14, same names
control metadata identical, 14/14
payload contents identical, 14/14
changelog.Debian differs, 2 packages -- deliberately, see below
Byte-identity is NOT the criterion, because neither implementation has it: two
consecutive runs of build-ubunturepo on the same tree agree on 0 of 14 packages.
A .deb records the build wall-clock time in its ar member mtimes and
SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH does not reach dpkg-deb here, so every run differs from every
other. That is a pre-existing property of the Debian build, not a regression, and
worth fixing separately.
The changelog difference is build-ubunturepo being wrong. Its
sed -i "s/^ -- .*/ -- $DEBFULLNAME <$DEBEMAIL> $deterministic_date/"
carries no line address, so it rewrites EVERY trailer in debian/changelog:
"OCF xCAT <xcat@ocf.co.uk> Mon, 25 Oct 2010" ships as "xCAT Build
<xcat-build@xcat.org> Tue, 01 Sep 2026". It falsifies the authorship and dates of
the 2008 and 2010 releases. builddebs.pl rewrites only the top stanza. Matching
byte-for-byte would mean reproducing the defect, so this difference stays.
(xcat-vlan appeared to differ under `diff -r`; that was diff reporting dangling
symlinks in both trees. Its member listing is identical.)
build-ubunturepo is documented as retained-for-comparison and not to be extended.
It goes once the Ubuntu CD pipelines call builddebs.pl.
Signed-off-by: Daniel Hilst <392820+dhilst@users.noreply.github.com>
xCAT
xCAT is a toolkit for deployment and administration of clusters of all sizes.
The xCAT sunset was only a quick eclipse
Dear xCAT Community,
The xCAT sunset has changed course. VersatusHPC has been invited to join the xCAT Consortium, and future development will move toward direct upstream contributions coordinated with the Consortium and its existing member companies.
That matters most for Enterprise Linux 10 (EL10). EL10 support is coming to xCAT, restoring a future operating-system path for sites that still rely on xCAT. This is an important change from the previous sunset guidance, where the lack of an EL10 path was one of the strongest reasons to move away from xCAT.
The xCAT Consortium continues to recommend Confluent as the long-term successor to xCAT, and that remains the Consortium position. Users planning new cluster-management deployments should evaluate Confluent and its xCAT comparison documentation.
At the same time, xCAT is no longer sunsetted. The Consortium and participating companies will continue updating xCAT while there is community and user demand for it.
In summary:
- xCAT development is continuing upstream through the Consortium and participating companies.
- Enterprise Linux 10 support is coming.
- Confluent remains the Consortium-recommended successor and migration path.
- xCAT updates will continue while there is community and user demand.
We want to thank the xCAT Consortium and community for keeping this project moving. The sun went behind the moon for a moment, but xCAT is still here.
For more information on Confluent and how to get started, please visit the Confluent: Project Page, Documentation or Confluent vs xCAT comparison.
With thanks,
The xCAT Consortium
Documentation
xCAT Documentation is hosted on Read The Docs: https://xcat-docs.readthedocs.io
Status
| xCAT Version | Build Status |
|---|---|
| Latest (master branch) | |
| Stable (latest release) |
Looking for older versions?
Open Source License
xCAT is made available under the EPL license: https://opensource.org/licenses/eclipse-1.0.php
Developers
Want to help? Check out the developers guide!