Cloud-archive selection widget is obsolete

[Jeroen T. Vermeulen]

The Preferences page lets users enter Ubuntu archive URLs. But those URLs no longer have any meaning for the import script.

The import_boot_images Celery task copies these settings into environment variables MAIN_ARCHIVE, PORTS_ARCHIVE, and CLOUD_IMAGES_ARCHIVE. The new import script doesn't care about these. The main and ports archives are still used for the preseeds, but the cloud-images archive seems to be a rudimentary tail.

We do need new settings for the Simplestreams sources, of course, but that's not a simple matter of re-purposing these widgets. The Simplestreams sources are not tied to a fixed number or fixed roles, and each needs image selections associated with it.

The existence of the dysfunctional settings has already led people into trouble with the Trusty beta.

[Jeroen T. Vermeulen (jtv)]

Getting more and more confused. The cloud_images_archive setting is documented as being used by the nodes, for downloading ephemeral images. But the nodes obtain their ephemeral images from their cluster controllers, and I don't see anything passing that setting to the nodes, nor anything on the node side that makes use of it.

Conversely, the ports archive is documented as being for use by the cluster controller, but the setting does seem to be passed on to, and used by, the nodes.

[Julian Edwards (julian-edwards)]

The proxies/archives are used in
the ephemeral and installation
environments where they need to
download packages from the
archive. Be careful...

[Jeroen T. Vermeulen (jtv)]

In all cases I have searched the maas, packaging, maas-enlist, cloud-init, simplestreams, and curtin branches for the items I'm proposing to remove. I found no uses of any of them. Are there any other places I should look at to find potential uses?

[Julian Edwards (julian-edwards)]

I think you're all good with the cloud_images_archive setting, thanks.