samba vfs glusterfs shares do not work because glusterfs.so is missing from samba-vfs-modules

Hi Mauro,

Thanks for taking the time to report this bug and help to make Ubuntu better.

The GlusterFS is disabled intentionally. If you check the debian/changelog you will see this:

    - d/control, d/rules: Disable glusterfs support because it's not in main.
      MIR bug is https://launchpad.net/bugs/1274247

Since samba is a package available in main, all of its dependencies should be in main as well, and GlusterFS is not. As you can see in the mentioned MIR bug there were some attempts to promote GlusterFS to main but with no success.

The only way to get the GlusterFS support enabled is promoting it main, and it seems not to happen soon. Due to that I am marking this bug as "Won't Fix".

@lucaskanahiro's analysis is correct, that's the reason we don't have the glustervfs module enabled in the ubuntu build of samba, as it would go into the samba-vfs-modules package which is in main and cannot have dependencies in universe.

That being said, this is not the first time we have had such a request, and I'm thinking we can create a new binary package that only contains the glustervfs module (and its documentation) and place that package in universe. We don't do such a thing lightly, as it increases our packaging delta with debian and adds to the maintenance work of this "special snowflake", but I think we can try.

I have a branch for groovy here:

https://code.launchpad.net/~ahasenack/ubuntu/+source/samba/+git/samba/+ref/groovy-gluster-newbin

And a corresponding PPA here (also just with a groovy build at the moment):
https://launchpad.net/~ahasenack/+archive/ubuntu/samba-gluster

This produces a new binary package called samba-vfs-glusterfs which ships the glusterfs vfs modules.

Will there be a package with vfs_glusterfs for Ubuntu 20.04 Focal in near future?

Or does anyone have built a vfs_glusterfs package for Focal in the meantime? It is really annoying that - in difference to Redhat - no separate binary package for this VFS module is available.

Yes, it makes sense, not putting it into main - but as separate package to universe - why not?

Just wondering the same, is a package ever going to be made available?
If GlusterFS cannot be made available in 'main' why not make vfs_glusterfs as part of the gluster package?

Beside all of the good reasons given, this is an issue blocking several users that should be considered for a permanent solution as a matter of priority.

I understand that Andreas is no longer expecting to be able to work on this soon, so I'm unassigning him to make this clear.

Sorry, I disagree with you on the priority. Therefore I don't expect anyone to work on this soon.

However Andreas has provided test packages above, for those who need to get going right now. If you need this feature in Ubuntu's "official" samba packaging, then you're welcome to volunteer the necessary work, or find someone who can. We'd be happy to help guide a volunteer, but we wouldn't expect to be doing the legwork in that case.

I still don't get it why the module is not built and just with a removed dependency. Anyone needing Samba with the GlusterFS integration will have to take care of the dependencies.

Neither do I. What is the matter with including a module without a dependency link? You put that in the notes. After all who is going to use that module without glusterfs installed first?
The issues this missing module is creating are certainly greater than the small inconvenience of including a module without dependency.

Or at least can someone give some hint how to build the module myself for 20.04 ?
Obviously the packages in the ppa have unmet dependencies (at least on x86_64) and I can't install them.

I am not willing to say it, but in worst case scenario I will have to migrate to RHEL derivatives,as they got it working (at least it works on CentOS 8 /not the Stream/).

Thank you for your interest in this issue.

Let me start by addressing the question of why we can't (or rather "don't want") to provide a samba-vfs-glusterfs package without the direct dependency to glusterfs. We strive to provide good quality packages for Ubuntu users, and that means that if a user issues an "apt-get install samba-vfs-glusterfs" command, we want everything to be ready to be used when that command finishes. Having a package that doesn't fully list its dependencies/recommends goes against this goal.

As Robie mentioned above, this issue could be driven by someone from the community who has the time and motivation to do the rest of the work. Please note that this person would be working to get the package into the development release of Ubuntu; more work would be needed in order to make this available in Focal (if that's even possible).

Having said that, I'd like to say that I understand the frustration here. I put together a PPA containing a samba package for Focal with the glusterfs module enabled. Instead of doing what Andreas did and making sure that the new package doesn't depend on glusterfs (which is in universe), I decided to leave things closer to what Debian does and let it depend on anything that is needed. Please not that this package would not be suitable for the current state of the archive.

The PPA is at:

https://launchpad.net/~sergiodj/+archive/ubuntu/samba-glusterfs

The git repository containing this temporary package is here:

https://code.launchpad.net/~sergiodj/ubuntu/+source/samba/+git/samba/+ref/glusterfs-focal

I will talk to the team tomorrow and see what can be done regarding this bug, but I make no promises here.

@sergiodj

Thank you for addressing this matter. I think this is more a matter of different opinions than a technical one, because technically there are different ways, all discussed above, on how this can be resolved.

Thinking about Ubuntu mission, you said "we strive to provide good quality packages", but from the end user point of view we can only consider a samba package that is missing the glusterfs module as really poor quality. Some have already stated that this issue forced them to switch to CentOS/RedHat who solved this problem.

As I said above, this can be resolved easily by just including the missing module without referencing the dependency in the package. Users are wise enough to know that they need glusterfs client. On the other end, if you want to force the dependency, what is the matter with having glusterfs installed (and not used at users' discretion) when samba is installed? There is already so much fuff installed that we don't know anything about, that one more package does not make a real difference to anyone, but would make a positive difference to the large community now demanding samba with glusterfs.

If I recall corrctly, in rpm-based distroa there "hard" and "soft" dependencies.
Maybe there is such kind in deb too ?

I guess a soft dependency between the module and glusterfs is enough.

Another approach is like the PPA which will provide the module 'as-is' and the end user is taking responsibility to take care of it.

The MIR[1] was approved, let's see if we can get this going.

1. https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/glusterfs/+bug/1950321

This bug was fixed in the package samba - 2:4.15.5~dfsg-0ubuntu5

---------------
samba (2:4.15.5~dfsg-0ubuntu5) jammy; urgency=medium

  * Enable glusterfs support (LP: #1894618):
    - d/control: revert disabling of glusterfs, since it's in main now
    - d/rules: in Ubuntu, glusterfs is not built for i386, so don't
      enable the samba glusterfs vfs mofule in that case
    - d/control: build-depend on libglusterfs-dev only on !i386 arches

 -- Andreas Hasenack <email address hidden> Wed, 09 Mar 2022 17:31:25 -0300