Task #3102
Updated by jortel@redhat.com about 7 years ago
h1. Background During a discussion with Austin to resolve a problem implementing #3033, an interested question was raised - "Why do Distributions needs to be owned by Publishers?" This question came up when considering a solution to a DRF difficulty related to both Publications and Distributions being nested under publisher/ AND related to each other. The idea being considered was to move Distributions to a top level resource. Here are the benefits: 1. Resolves current DRF nesting issue w/ #3033. (This is minor). 2. A distribution could be updated to reference any publication. This is more flexible. 3. Since Distribution.base_path is unique across all repositories/publishers, it might be more intuitive to be a top level resource? Currently, the Distribution.publisher_id represents a parent-child relationship the mainly exists to support automatic distribution. When the publisher creates a new publication, it is automatically associated to any of the publisher's distributions marked as auto_updated=True. There are two challenges to moving the Distribution to a top-level resources. 1. The distribution name is currently unique by (publisher_id, name). 2. This would break automatic distribution as currently implemented. Here are a few options to resolving these challenges: 1. The name could be unique across all distributions. This seems reasonable. 2. Redesign automatic distribution. (see proposal below). 3. Reconsider automatic distribution. h1. Proposal: --- Proposal to redesign automatic distribution. The use case for automatic distribution is similar to automatic publishing. The user has updated a repository; has published it; and now wants to consume content. This could be done by making 3 API calls: 1 sync; 2 publish; 3 update-a-distribution. But, based on pulp2, users want to do this with 1 API call. h3. Details: So, here is the proposal. 1. Move distributions to the top level resource (no longer owned by a publisher). 2. Remove Distribution.publisher_id and Distribution.auto_updated. 3. Add (optional) Publisher.distribution_id. When set, the referenced distribution will be updated with newly created publications. 4. Update the publish task logic to use the Publisher.distribution_id instead of matching by (publisher_id, auto_updated=True) to automatic distribution. New ER diagram: <pre> Publisher <---* Publication | ^ (0,1) | | | | v (0,1) | Distribution -------- </pre> ---
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