LXC OS Updates

[Katherine Cox-Buday]

Hey all!

Ian and I were discussing lp:1350493
<https://bugs.launchpad.net/juju-core/+bug/1350493> (1.20.x local provider
not running apt-get update) and thought it might be good to raise a few
ideas here.

It is my understanding that currently we do LXC cloning in the interest of
saving time -- the thinking being: if I have an image set up, I want to use
it as a starting-point when provisioning machines. Pursuant to this
performance goal, Juju will not run the OS's upgrades if a clone is
performed. Of course, this is what is causing the aforementioned bug.

I am doing some work for another issue lp:1322302
<https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/juju-core/+bug/1322302> which
involves attempting to speed up provisioning of local providers. One of the
things we're introducing are config values (with sane, backwards-compatible
defaults) that allow the user to specify whether or not they'd like Juju to
refresh the available updates (in dpkg systems, apt-get update), and
whether or not they'd like Juju to execute any available updates (in dpkg
systems, apt-get upgrade).

We'd like to remove the assumption embedded in the code that if we're
cloning an LXC container, then we never want to perform OS upgrades.
Instead, the logic based on the config variable will take over, and the
user can have whatever behavior they desire. Local installations will be
snappy, and production installations will be up to date.

We feel this empowers both developers and end-users, but wanted to raise
this for discussion. Feedback welcome!

-
Katherine
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