joyent-mdata-client in Ubuntu

[j5awry]

Followed breadcrumbs to reach this location. joyent-mdata-client in Ubuntu has not received any updates in the past 10 years. This package is in Ubuntu only and not sync'd from Debian. History has been lost through time as to the purpose / need of mdata-client in Ubuntu. This repository looks active, and appears to be the new / continued source of mdata-client. I come bearing questions

1. is mdata-client a useful package in the Ubuntu ecosystem? As far as I can tell, only SmartOS is really supported, though there are statements that it builds and runs on other Linux distros. I don't see evidence of any builds from this repository
2. if it is not useful, can i get an ack to remove the old package from Ubuntu?

Proceeding Options

1. leave it alone. the current joyent-mdata-client still operates properly in context, and no functional changes are required. Please keep maintaining it (we'll keep adding patches to make sure it builds with the latest toolchains, keep packaging updated as required, etc)
2. remove joyent-mdata-client and replace with triton-mdata-client. will needs some care as both supplied binaries by the same name. may need to work on some packaging portions.
3. update joyent-mdata-client with the latest source from this repository. update watch files to stay up to date (may be difficult because the release scheme seems to be to cut a release branch? we'll figure that out)
4. remove joyent-mdata-client and offer no replacement.

This comes up because the current packaging installs the package into a non-usrmerge'd location (see DEP-17 for info ). if we are keeping joyent-mdata-client in the distro we'll need to rectify the issue. Let me know how you'd like to proceed.

[danmcd]

Joyent let go of SmartOS and Triton Data Center in 2022, but most people know that it came from Joyent, and there is a lot of Joyent references in the greater SmartOS and Triton ecosystem.

I only ask that removing *-mdata-client not be done. This is used by Ubuntu guests, and some Triton or SmartOS users depend on mdata-{list,get,put,delete} for their Ubuntu guests. (NOTE: one needs to be root@guest to use the tools.)

As far as I can tell, picking any of options 1-3 will work for us. We do not update this often, as it is pretty stable, but we do occasionally; often for updates in our own build tooling. The most recent non-tooling change was fef15f8 and you should probably update for THAT reason.

If you need our further assistance in solving this, ping here and we'll keep talking. If you have enough to go on, please let us know what your plans are, and close this issue.

[j5awry]

if you're ok keeping the package name as joyent-mdata-client, that's easier from a packaging standpoint.

I'll open bug(s) in Ubuntu to track getting an update in, and fixing the current packaging issue. It may lag a bit to get things updated, but with a tracking bug to get it updated, it's more likely to get actioned. We also welcome contributors :)

[danmcd]

Sounds good. The fix I cited tends to affect BSDs more than Linuxes so no big pressure. I will not close this; I believe you should. Sorry I can't help immediately at your end, but we're not as deep on the bench as you Ubuntu folks are.