[yast-devel] Storage Wizards
Hi, the YaST team has the idea to make some storage tasks simpler to use by introducing storage wizards. Attached are the first brain storming results. Feedback is wanted. ciao Arvin -- Arvin Schnell, <aschnell@suse.com> Senior Software Engineer, Research & Development SUSE Software Solutions Germany GmbH Maxfeldstraße 5 90409 Nürnberg Germany (HRB 36809, AG Nürnberg) Geschäftsführer: Felix Imendörffer
On Fri, 5 Jun 2020 07:27:14 +0000 Arvin Schnell <aschnell@suse.com> wrote:
Hi,
the YaST team has the idea to make some storage tasks simpler to use by introducing storage wizards.
Attached are the first brain storming results. Feedback is wanted.
ciao Arvin
Hi, let me comments few parts of document: Creating RAID ------------- sounds reasonable. I just hope that e.g. for size, there is option like max so it use e.g. whole 4 disks for big data partition with some redundancy. Creating Bcache --------------- same here. Just maybe instead of cache fraction it would be better to have just size of cache including max option to use whole SSD disk. Storage Pools ------------- To be honest I do not like much this idea. It just make whole wizard more complex and I think goal should be to provide easy way to setup partitioning as you want and some additional concepts on top of it does not help. Helpers like all SSD or all rotational disk for e.g. bcache or raid makes sense, but having additional setup of some pools makes things a bit more complex. Abstraction ----------- I worry that this abstraction just confuse users. If user already knows "I want an 8 TiB XFS filesystem with RAID5 redundancy on 6 disks and snapshot support." then I think he also wants to select technology. Only part where it makes sense is autoyast, but still I think user wants to pick technology to use. Manual Space Maker ------------------ yes, for sure. For me current space maker configuration never works well and having simple way just to specify what I want delete sounds good for me. Control Sizes ------------- and also following, I am not sure what it means additional proposal parameters. Like adding it to guided setup? Then I would add there also manual space maker. Or something else? Josef -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: yast-devel+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: yast-devel+owner@opensuse.org
On Fri, Jun 05, 2020 at 10:39:55AM +0200, josef Reidinger wrote:
Storage Pools -------------
To be honest I do not like much this idea. It just make whole wizard more complex and I think goal should be to provide easy way to setup partitioning as you want and some additional concepts on top of it does not help. Helpers like all SSD or all rotational disk for e.g. bcache or raid makes sense, but having additional setup of some pools makes things a bit more complex.
But users who have e.g. USB HDDs purely for backup have to select all non USB HDDs every time they need to create a RAID. That seems tedious to me.
Abstraction -----------
I worry that this abstraction just confuse users. If user already knows "I want an 8 TiB XFS filesystem with RAID5 redundancy on 6 disks and snapshot support." then I think he also wants to select technology. Only part where it makes sense is autoyast, but still I think user wants to pick technology to use.
The user can once select the technology to use - apart of the fact that YaST so far only provides one technology. ciao Arvin -- Arvin Schnell, <aschnell@suse.com> Senior Software Engineer, Research & Development SUSE Software Solutions Germany GmbH Maxfeldstraße 5 90409 Nürnberg Germany (HRB 36809, AG Nürnberg) Geschäftsführer: Felix Imendörffer -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: yast-devel+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: yast-devel+owner@opensuse.org
On Fri, 5 Jun 2020 10:44:33 +0000 Arvin Schnell <aschnell@suse.com> wrote:
On Fri, Jun 05, 2020 at 10:39:55AM +0200, josef Reidinger wrote:
Storage Pools -------------
To be honest I do not like much this idea. It just make whole wizard more complex and I think goal should be to provide easy way to setup partitioning as you want and some additional concepts on top of it does not help. Helpers like all SSD or all rotational disk for e.g. bcache or raid makes sense, but having additional setup of some pools makes things a bit more complex.
But users who have e.g. USB HDDs purely for backup have to select all non USB HDDs every time they need to create a RAID. That seems tedious to me.
Well, how often you create RAID? I expect not so often, on other hand having more complex UI with new terms that makes it for everyone harder to use is big cons for me. So I prefer wizard that allows me to just select devices where I want raid without any additional logic with pools.
Abstraction -----------
I worry that this abstraction just confuse users. If user already knows "I want an 8 TiB XFS filesystem with RAID5 redundancy on 6 disks and snapshot support." then I think he also wants to select technology. Only part where it makes sense is autoyast, but still I think user wants to pick technology to use.
The user can once select the technology to use - apart of the fact that YaST so far only provides one technology.
I think it is SUSE strategy to support just one technology for given task, so I am not sure if this abstraction make sense when plan is to have just one supported implementation.
ciao Arvin
Josef -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: yast-devel+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: yast-devel+owner@opensuse.org
On Fri, Jun 05, 2020 at 03:08:14PM +0200, josef Reidinger wrote:
Well, how often you create RAID? I expect not so often, on other hand having more complex UI with new terms that makes it for everyone harder to use is big cons for me. So I prefer wizard that allows me to just select devices where I want raid without any additional logic with pools.
We do not know what our users are doing. For one RAID pools are likely overkill, for ten they are very nice.
I think it is SUSE strategy to support just one technology for given task, so I am not sure if this abstraction make sense when plan is to have just one supported implementation.
Even better if we only support one technology for a task. Just call it "speed up by using SSD as cache" and let YaST do the rest. The point is that such a wizard brings advanced features to users in a simpler form. ciao Arvin -- Arvin Schnell, <aschnell@suse.com> Senior Software Engineer, Research & Development SUSE Software Solutions Germany GmbH Maxfeldstraße 5 90409 Nürnberg Germany (HRB 36809, AG Nürnberg) Geschäftsführer: Felix Imendörffer -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: yast-devel+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: yast-devel+owner@opensuse.org
On Fri, Jun 05, 2020 at 07:27:14AM +0000, Arvin Schnell wrote:
Storage Pools -------------
YaST would save the definition of the pools for later reuse. And YaST could also auto-generate two pools: One for HDDs and one for SSDs.
And a pool for PMEMs. Also as we know now if the devices have different block sizes a pool for each block size. ciao Arvin -- Arvin Schnell, <aschnell@suse.com> Senior Software Engineer, Research & Development SUSE Software Solutions Germany GmbH Maxfeldstraße 5 90409 Nürnberg Germany (HRB 36809, AG Nürnberg) Geschäftsführer: Felix Imendörffer -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: yast-devel+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: yast-devel+owner@opensuse.org
As I see it, several wizards could be unified. For example, for RAID, LVM, Btrfs and even for Bcache we would have a wizard asking for: * Technology (RAID, LVM, Btrfs, Bcache, Auto) * Devices/pool to use * Partitions and their sizes * RAID level (if proceed) * Cache (if proceed) * Cache devices/pool (if proceed) I would directly ask for the partition/volume sizes the user wants to achieve. I think the user does not mind about the size of the RAID or LVM VG itself, but the size of the partition for root or home. Moreover, in the technology selection we could offer an "Auto" option or similar. This would do the job of the "Abstraction" wizard. And regarding the "Proposal Wizard" section, I really like the option for manually deciding which devices to destroy. I think this could have been a part of the current guided proposal already. In fact, it would make the proposal code much more straightforward. -- José Iván López González YaST Team at SUSE LINUX GmbH IRC: jilopez -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: yast-devel+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: yast-devel+owner@opensuse.org
On Mon, Jun 08, 2020 at 04:31:35PM +0100, José Iván López González wrote:
As I see it, several wizards could be unified. For example, for RAID, LVM, Btrfs and even for Bcache we would have a wizard asking for:
* Technology (RAID, LVM, Btrfs, Bcache, Auto)
When selecting RAID is the wizard over when the RAID is defined or does it include the e.g. file system?
* Devices/pool to use * Partitions and their sizes * RAID level (if proceed) * Cache (if proceed) * Cache devices/pool (if proceed)
So this is a bit like the abstract wizard. BTW: AFAIS the wizards are intended to be an addition, not replace any existing dialogs. ciao Arvin -- Arvin Schnell, <aschnell@suse.com> Senior Software Engineer, Research & Development SUSE Software Solutions Germany GmbH Maxfeldstraße 5 90409 Nürnberg Germany (HRB 36809, AG Nürnberg) Geschäftsführer: Felix Imendörffer -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: yast-devel+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: yast-devel+owner@opensuse.org
On 6/8/20 6:40 PM, Arvin Schnell wrote:
On Mon, Jun 08, 2020 at 04:31:35PM +0100, José Iván López González wrote:
As I see it, several wizards could be unified. For example, for RAID, LVM, Btrfs and even for Bcache we would have a wizard asking for:
* Technology (RAID, LVM, Btrfs, Bcache, Auto)
When selecting RAID is the wizard over when the RAID is defined or does it include the e.g. file system?
I am not sure if I got the question. I guess the wizards are only intended to create devices but not for editing them. And to define a directly formatted RAID we would need some different options, but I am not sure how it would look like.
* Devices/pool to use * Partitions and their sizes * RAID level (if proceed) * Cache (if proceed) * Cache devices/pool (if proceed)
So this is a bit like the abstract wizard.
BTW: AFAIS the wizards are intended to be an addition, not replace any existing dialogs.
Yes, I agree. I am only proposing a kind of wizards unification because I see that almost all wizards share the same pattern: select devices to use, desired final sizes, etc. CU Iván -- José Iván López González YaST Team at SUSE LINUX GmbH IRC: jilopez -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: yast-devel+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: yast-devel+owner@opensuse.org
On Tue, Jun 09, 2020 at 07:33:10AM +0100, José Iván López González wrote:
On 6/8/20 6:40 PM, Arvin Schnell wrote:
When selecting RAID is the wizard over when the RAID is defined or does it include the e.g. file system?
I am not sure if I got the question. I guess the wizards are only intended to create devices but not for editing them. And to define a directly formatted RAID we would need some different options, but I am not sure how it would look like.
Is the end result of the wizard a file system, whether on RAID, LVM or plain partition? In that case it basically matches the abstraction I proposed. ciao Arvin -- Arvin Schnell, <aschnell@suse.com> Senior Software Engineer, Research & Development SUSE Software Solutions Germany GmbH Maxfeldstraße 5 90409 Nürnberg Germany (HRB 36809, AG Nürnberg) Geschäftsführer: Felix Imendörffer -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: yast-devel+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: yast-devel+owner@opensuse.org
On 6/9/20 8:06 AM, Arvin Schnell wrote:
On Tue, Jun 09, 2020 at 07:33:10AM +0100, José Iván López González wrote:
On 6/8/20 6:40 PM, Arvin Schnell wrote:
Is the end result of the wizard a file system, whether on RAID, LVM or plain partition? In that case it basically matches the abstraction I proposed.
I expect the wizard result is the device without a filesystem, that is, a RAID, LVM VG, Bcache. Well, Btrfs is special and the result is a filesystem of course. I was also proposing an step forward. We could ask for the basic information about the partitions/volumes that the user wants to create over the new device. For example: I want a RAID 5 with 3 partitions over it, 20 GiB EXT4 for /, 20 GiB XFS for /home and 2 GiB for swap. Later, the user could use the partition dialog to fine tuning the result, for example to configure the filesystem options. -- José Iván López González YaST Team at SUSE LINUX GmbH IRC: jilopez -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: yast-devel+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: yast-devel+owner@opensuse.org
On Tue, Jun 09, 2020 at 08:18:44AM +0100, José Iván López González wrote:
I expect the wizard result is the device without a filesystem, that is, a RAID, LVM VG, Bcache. Well, Btrfs is special and the result is a filesystem of course.
I was also proposing an step forward. We could ask for the basic information about the partitions/volumes that the user wants to create over the new device.
For example: I want a RAID 5 with 3 partitions over it, 20 GiB EXT4 for /, 20 GiB XFS for /home and 2 GiB for swap.
OK, so for RAID and LVM the user specifies the sizes the resulting partitions resp. logical volumes and YaST the creates a RAID resp. volume group big enough for all of them.
Later, the user could use the partition dialog to fine tuning the result, for example to configure the filesystem options.
That is one thing I do not like about the expert partitioner. After creating a RAID I must select the RAID and then create the file system. I would prefer if the file system selection comes immediately (or this role selection). ciao Arvin -- Arvin Schnell, <aschnell@suse.com> Senior Software Engineer, Research & Development SUSE Software Solutions Germany GmbH Maxfeldstraße 5 90409 Nürnberg Germany (HRB 36809, AG Nürnberg) Geschäftsführer: Felix Imendörffer -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: yast-devel+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: yast-devel+owner@opensuse.org
On 6/9/20 8:43 AM, Arvin Schnell wrote:
On Tue, Jun 09, 2020 at 08:18:44AM +0100, José Iván López González wrote:
Later, the user could use the partition dialog to fine tuning the result, for example to configure the filesystem options.
That is one thing I do not like about the expert partitioner. After creating a RAID I must select the RAID and then create the file system. I would prefer if the file system selection comes immediately (or this role selection).
Yes. What I wanted to say is that wizards don't need to offer all possible options for configuring the filesystem, only the very basic like the filesystem type and the size. The rest of advanced options can be configured later, if needed. -- José Iván López González YaST Team at SUSE LINUX GmbH IRC: jilopez -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: yast-devel+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: yast-devel+owner@opensuse.org
Hi, instead of a wonderful Retrospective Meeting we will have an awesome meeting about storage wizards today on Jangouts. Start is 14:00 CEST. ciao Arvin -- Arvin Schnell, <aschnell@suse.com> Senior Software Engineer, Research & Development SUSE Software Solutions Germany GmbH Maxfeldstraße 5 90409 Nürnberg Germany (HRB 36809, AG Nürnberg) Geschäftsführer: Felix Imendörffer -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: yast-devel+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: yast-devel+owner@opensuse.org
Hi, the meeting took a surprising direction. Despite the PBI saying that the source of scenarios are the SUSE manuals, that idea is now not acceptable anymore. Instead scenarios should now be gathered by asking on MLs. Apart from that the general opinion was: - Wizards to create things, like RAID, should not include steps to first make space. - Pools are a new concept users should not be confronted with. ciao Arvin -- Arvin Schnell, <aschnell@suse.com> Senior Software Engineer, Research & Development SUSE Software Solutions Germany GmbH Maxfeldstraße 5 90409 Nürnberg Germany (HRB 36809, AG Nürnberg) Geschäftsführer: Felix Imendörffer -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: yast-devel+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: yast-devel+owner@opensuse.org
Hi, today we will have another meeting about storage wizards on Jangouts starting 14:30 CEST. This time the agenda is to make the decisions (what we want) final. ciao Arvin -- Arvin Schnell, <aschnell@suse.com> Senior Software Engineer, Research & Development SUSE Software Solutions Germany GmbH Maxfeldstraße 5 90409 Nürnberg Germany (HRB 36809, AG Nürnberg) Geschäftsführer: Felix Imendörffer -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: yast-devel+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: yast-devel+owner@opensuse.org
Hi, in the so far final meeting yesterday (about half of the YaST Team participated) concerning storage wizards we agreed on the following: - We want a wizard to create a RAID where the user selects disks, in general partitionables, and provides a size (either max, size of resulting RAID or size of partition. YaST then creates partitions on the disks. Otherwise the wizard is like the existing one (e.g. select RAID level, optional RAID name). We do not want to use pools of disks for this. - In general we also want such wizards to create a bcache or LVM volume group. But the concept here is not so clear so this will happen later. We also want to wait for feedback about the RAID wizard. - Although likely not a new wizard as such we also want during installation the possibility to generate a storage proposal from the expert partitioner. This should allow the user: - Fine control over removing things before generating the proposal. - Create things differently that the proposal does, e.g. LVM logical volume for /, which the proposal then keeps/uses. Some additional UI improvements: - When removing a RAID the user should get the option to also remove the partitions the RAID uses. This should also be possible for bcache and LVM. - Since wizards make big changes to the graph of devices, some undo mechanism should be provided. One idea is to always save the state before starting an action/dialog/wizard from the main dialog of the expert partitioner. ciao Arvin -- Arvin Schnell, <aschnell@suse.com> Senior Software Engineer, Research & Development SUSE Software Solutions Germany GmbH Maxfeldstraße 5 90409 Nürnberg Germany (HRB 36809, AG Nürnberg) Geschäftsführer: Felix Imendörffer -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: yast-devel+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: yast-devel+owner@opensuse.org
participants (3)
-
Arvin Schnell -
josef Reidinger -
José Iván López González