List of useful extra packages for dom0

[olivierlambert]

We should be able to allow people to download directly some "extra" packages that can be really useful.

The only downside is that we'll need to synchronize any package update from CentOS to XCP-ng.

Monitoring

General

• htop (prettier than top): no extra deps
• iftop (network top): no extra deps
• iperf (handy to check network issues): no extra deps
• netdata (this RPM seems to work)

Security

• wireguard (that would be VERY nice to avoid exposing XAPI publicly for "Cloud" setup)

UPS

• apcupsd
• nut

Misc

• vim
• mc

If you have ideas of stuff that you'll like, let us know here

[mkninc]

For UPS monitoring

• apcupsd
• nut

[olivierlambert]

@mkninc thanks for the feedback, can you check if those RPMs on CentOS 7 require external deps not already present in XCP-ng?

[mkninc]

===========================================================================================================
 Package                 Arch                   Version                         Repository            Size
===========================================================================================================
Installing:
 apcupsd                 x86_64                 3.14.14-5.el7                   epel                 305 k
Installing for dependencies:
 libusb                  x86_64                 1:0.1.4-3.el7                   base                  19 k

===========================================================================================================
 Package                   Arch                  Version                         Repository           Size
===========================================================================================================
Installing:
 nut                       x86_64                2.7.2-4.el7                     epel                1.6 M
Installing for dependencies:
 freeipmi                  x86_64                1.5.7-2.el7                     base                2.0 M
 libusb                    x86_64                1:0.1.4-3.el7                   base                 19 k
 nut-client                x86_64                2.7.2-4.el7                     epel                206 k

[borzel]

• vim
• mc ("graphical" file browser)

[stormi]

I love mc, totally agree with the suggestion :)

[stormi]

#40 was asking for cryptosetup, too.

[olivierlambert]

Good catch, let's close the other issue to centralize requests here :+1:

[adnae]

Hi, one mistake ;) Cryptosetup is cryptsetup ;)

But I have one more package as request ... nrpe

That is nice for an external montoring

[borzel]

• monitoring: check-mk-agent (and xinetd and maybe changes at the firewall rules for port 6556)

[jcharaoui]

yum-utils and yum-plugin-versionlock for easier package/repository management

[stormi]

We had added traceroute in #32 but that was in the old repo, so we need to add it again.

[fetzerms]

I usually install cryptsetup manually from the centos base repos on XS7 and it works fine.

Also:

• monitoring: munin-node

[gdelafond]

Troobleshooting:

• htop
• iftop
• iperf

• tcpdump
• nload
• mtr
• sysstat (iostat, mpstat, sar)
• dstat
• nethogs

Monitoring:

• netdata

• net-snmp-utils
• nagios-plugins

Hardware RAID tools:

• tw_cli
• storcli

Editors

• vim

• emacs-nox

Security

• fail2ban
• ferm

Misc

• hdparm
• pv
• lshw
• dnsutils

[oallart]

locate - useful to ...locate things tmux - screen too, but tmux better for terminal sessions

[yctn]

bwm-ng small and simple console-based bandwidth monitor iptraf Interactive Colorful IP LAN Monitor iotop simple top-like I/O monitor shorewall(firewall)

[PeS-hkfree]

Hi, we are heavilly using nmon - nmon.sourceforge.net have binaries for RH/CentOS 7.2, works well.

[stormi]

The list is becoming overwhelming and I see no reason to reject any package from it (except if they require libs that would overwrite those of XCP-ng).

I'm considering a new approach, because I don't think maintaining a significant portion of the CentOS repos in ours will make sense in the long run. Actually two new approaches:

1. Add CentOS and EPEL repos to XCP-ng but limit them to a whitelist. This means that every additional package will have to be approved manually but without the need for us to maintain the package afterwards, leaving this to RedHat and CentOS people who already do a good job.

2. Add unrestricted CentOS and EPEL repos, using the yum-plugin-priorities plugin, with the highest priority given to XCP-ng packages. This would allow installing anything from CentOS and EPEL provided they don't try to overwrite a package from XCP-ng. I'm using this yum plugin in xcp-ng-build-env for similar reasons and it seems to be working well.

In both cases I would have to rethink the yum upgrade process a little bit because we would need to update the CentOS and EPEL repository files before the upgrade, but I think I can make it work quite easily with just an extra step to the procedure (= update xcp-ng-release before updating the other packages).

[gdelafond]

The list is becoming overwhelming and I see no reason to reject any package from it (except if they require libs that would overwrite those of XCP-ng).

True.

I'm considering a new approach. Actually two new approaches, because I don't think maintaining a significant portion of the CentOS repos in ours will make sense in the long run.

I agree.

1. Add CentOS and EPEL repos to XCP-ng but limit them to a whitelist. This means that every additional package will have to be approved manually but without the need for us to maintain the package afterwards, leaving this to RedHat and CentOS people who already do a good job.

It will require more work for the XCP-ng Team, but all packages could be tested (and upgrades with them installed too). Many question in this case:

• will the list be fully open or be limited by criteria (wich ones)?
• who will be responsible to update this list ? update frequency ?

2. Add unrestricted CentOS and EPEL repos, using the yum-plugin-priorities plugin, with the highest priority given to XCP-ng packages. This would allow installing anything from CentOS and EPEL provided they don't try to overwrite a package from XCP-ng. I'm using this yum plugin in xcp-ng-build-env for similar reasons and it seems to be working well.

It will be more difficult to reproduce problems as everybody will be able to install any packages, but people will be really free to do what they want. In this case, packages known to be working could be put on a list in the wiki, with a warning telling that others have not been tested ?

[stormi]

1. Add CentOS and EPEL repos to XCP-ng but limit them to a whitelist. This means that every additional package will have to be approved manually but without the need for us to maintain the package afterwards, leaving this to RedHat and CentOS people who already do a good job.

It will require more work for the XCP-ng Team, but all packages could be tested (and upgrades with them installed too). Many question in this case:

* will the list be fully open or be limited by criteria (wich ones)?

The criteria that I can think of right now: not overwriting (or depending on packages that would overwrite) existing XCP-ng packages

* who will be responsible to update this list ? update frequency ?

Me at first, then if people join to share the work this could probably be maintained collectively. Update frequency: at least once every big release, probably more often. It mainly depends on the test effort people are willing to provide.

2. Add unrestricted CentOS and EPEL repos, using the yum-plugin-priorities plugin, with the highest priority given to XCP-ng packages. This would allow installing anything from CentOS and EPEL provided they don't try to overwrite a package from XCP-ng. I'm using this yum plugin in xcp-ng-build-env for similar reasons and it seems to be working well.

It will be more difficult to reproduce problems as everybody will be able to install any packages, but people will be really free to do what they want. In this case, packages known to be working could be put on a list in the wiki, with a warning telling that others have not been tested ?

Yes

[ManicoW]

I have a specific request as the wanted package is not a tool, but a dependency for a tool.

I'm trying to install salt-minion in order to join an xcp-server to our saltstack master, which is used for hundred of servers. I follow this guide : https://repo.saltstack.com/#rhel

But salt has a few dependencies that are not satisfied :

• python-backports-ssl_match_hostname , which can be installed from base centos without difficulties
• systemd-python, which cannot be installed from base, as systemd-* packages are in the exclude list un yum centos repos configuration

As far as I see, It seems that systemd is not the same version as in centos classic distribution, so I think that the better solution is to add this package in xcp-ng repositories/iso. As the source package for systemd-python is systemd, I think that it can be generated with the whole systemd-* packages ?

update

As stormi said me on IRC, this packages is in fact available, in builddeps for 7.5, and will be in base in 7.6. So my question is already answered. Thanks to him

[stormi]

Adding deltarpm as mentioned in #120

[stormi]

nvme-cli, as mentioned in https://xcp-ng.org/forum/topic/908/smartmontools

[xianglo]

Netdata. For the love of data.

[jotihojr]

yum-cron, automatic security updates

[adhawkins]

joe - A simple text editor

[stormi]

Current wishlist, with additional information for each package.

Troubleshooting

package	provenance	added dependencies	action
htop	epel	none	installed by default (8.0)
iftop	epel	none	installed by default (8.0)
iperf	epel	none	added to repo (8.0)
iperf3	centos	none	added to repo (8.0)
traceroute	centos	none	added to repo (8.0)
~~tcpdump~~	already installed	none	-
nload	epel	none	added to repo (8.0)
mtr	centos	none	added to repo (8.0)
~~sysstat~~	already installed	none	-
dstat	centos	none	added to repo (8.0)
nethogs	epel	none
bwm-ng	epel	none
iptraf-ng	centos	none
iotop	centos	none	added to repo (8.0)
nmon	epel	none
pv	epel	none
fio	centos	several

Monitoring

package	provenance	added dependencies	action
netdata	needs packaging	?
nrpe	epel	nagios-common
check-mk-agent	epel	GeoIP,bind-libs,bind-utils,bind-libs-lite,bind-license
munin-node	epel	62 packages
net-snmp-utils	centos	net-snmp,net-snmp-agent-libs,net-snmp-libs
nagios-plugins	epel	nagios-common

Security

package	provenance	added dependencies	action
wireguard	needs packaging	?
cryptsetup	centos	cryptsetup-libs	installed by default (8.0)
fail2ban	epel	a lot
ferm	epel	none

Hardware RAID tools

package	provenance	added dependencies	action
tw_cli	needs packaging	?
storcli	needs packaging, a RPM exists on broadcom's website	none at runtime

UPS

package	provenance	added dependencies	action
apcupsd	epel	libusb
nut	epel	freeipmi,libtool-ltdl,libusb,nut-client

Other hardware-related tools **

package	provenance	added dependencies	action
~~hdparm~~	already installed	none	-
dc3dd	epel	none
nvme-cli	centos	none	added to repo (8.0)
lshw	centos	none	added to repo (8.0)

Editors

package	provenance	added dependencies	action
vim-enhanced	centos	gpm-libs,vim-common,vim-filesystem	added to repo (8.0)
emacs-nox	centos	8 packages
joe	epel	none	added to repo (8.0)

Misc

package	provenance	added dependencies	action
deltarpm	centos	none
dnsutils	needs packaging	?
mlocate	centos	none, but doesn't it add I/O overhead?
mc	centos	gpm-libs	added to repo (8.0)
socat	centos	none	added to repo (8.0)
tmux	centos	none	added to repo (8.0)
wpa_supplicant	centos	none	added to repo (8.0 updates)
yum-cron	centos	none	available in repo as part of yum suite, but I don't advise using it! (8.0)
yum-utils	centos	none	installed by default (8.0)
yum-plugin-versionlock	centos	none	available in repo as part of yum suite, but I don't advise using it! (8.0)

[stormi]

Suggested on the forum: socat, useful to open VNC access

[gdelafond]

For netdata, there are official packages now : https://packagecloud.io/netdata/netdata

[gdelafond]

dc3dd is usefull to wipe a disk (it is like dd if=/dev/zero but with live status & more options)

[gdelafond]

For netdata, there are official packages now : https://packagecloud.io/netdata/netdata

and netdata is present in epel repo too.