euca2ools, kmeisthax@Lappy-486.A, and other annoyances

Well, it's finally out so I can tell you all about it: euca2ools, the fabled free software EC2 API client! Unlike a certain other company's tools, these don't have onerous usage restrictions. Yes, our VMBuilder[0] already supports using it as opposed to Amazon's tools, it defaults to Euca tools then Amazon's tools. (Block the usage of either using --ec2-no-amazon-tools or --ec2-no-euca-tools, keep in mind you still need one or the other to bundle or upload.)

And another thing... I recently took a look at the git repo [0], and noticed it's littered with commits by "David Wendt (kmeisthax@Lappy-486.A)"... please ignore the screwed-up e-mail address, I reinstalled Debian and forgot to change it to my normal address. (which is dcrkid (a) yahoo () com)

[0] git://git.debian.org/git/pkg-escience/vmbuilder.git

VMbuilder delay

I said I expected to have a working 'beta' of vmbuilder that could make AMIs of Debian by Friday. Well I don't think I can get it to you in time, because of the way that vmbuilder works. You see, the core VMbuilder has a nice system to support future distros sanely. So I could easily extend it to create VMs for pretty much anything that uses the Linux kernel.

But... EC2 has very specific pre-install/post-install actions that are hard-coded to three different Ubuntu distributions. So I need to talk to the EC2 plugin guys about how to refactor the thing to allow the distro plugin to offer specific EC2 actions. I _could_ just add preinstall/install_etch/lenny functions, but that would be a copout. I suspect this is the reason why the EC2 plugin isn't in VMbuilder trunk.

And as a final kink, it uses ec2-tools to bundle and upload the image, and a python library called Boto to register it in the VM deploy code. So I need to get patches in Boto - or find someone who's trying to get patches in it - to allow it to connect to Eucalyptus.

On the other hand, I found someone who's already written Debian plugins that work with regular (non-EC2/Euca) VMs. It only supports Etch, but Lenny shouldn't be that different from Etch.

So let's just say when I said Friday on the SOC coordination mailing list, it was in Valve Time.

Bad journalism that's suprisingly related to my project

These guys could do at least 10 minutes of research before writing an article. The AWS APIs are already 'open source', you're allowed to write free-software tools that use them. They're out in the open, with no NDA or anything attached. Eucalyptus also exists, which is a pretty darn good reimplementation of EC2. The only real impediment to an 'open' (you meant free, right?) cloud is that you can't use ec2-tools with it unless you want to fight off a pack of female Amazon warrior-lawyers. I hear their punches can leave a mark.

I'm too lazy to send them an e-mail, and the Slashdot comments are already calling 'em out anyway.