I'm proposing the blocker flag to make sure this gets fixed in 6.7, as I agree with Terry that this is a serious issue.

Additional details from RHEL 6.6

    # yum list glusterfs-*
    Installed Packages
    glusterfs.x86_64            3.6.0.29-2.el6      @rhel-6-server-rpms       
    glusterfs-api.x86_64        3.6.0.29-2.el6      @rhel-6-server-rpms       
    glusterfs-libs.x86_64       3.6.0.29-2.el6      @rhel-6-server-rpms       

Querying rpm shows that glusterfs advertises itself as providing the daemon, as well as providing the glusterfsd binary.

    # rpm -qi glusterfs
    ...
    This package includes the glusterfs binary, the glusterfsd daemon and the
    gluster command line, libglusterfs and glusterfs translator modules common to
    both GlusterFS server and client framework.

    # rpm -ql glusterfs|grep bin
    /usr/sbin/glusterfs
    /usr/sbin/glusterfsd

From an e-mail discussion:

Quoting myself:

"""
OK, I think I get it now. So what we want is indeed to reduce the
size of the glusterfs package (like you said, it's more like
glusterfs-common), removing the daemons and other extra stuff
from it, leaving it with the minimum necessary to allow the
client libraries to work.

Right now it includes:

binaries:
    /usr/sbin/glusterfs
    /usr/sbin/glusterfsd

(BTW, these two files are owned by both the glusterfs and
glusterfs-server packages, probably a bug).

manpages:
    /usr/share/man/man8/glusterd.8.gz
    /usr/share/man/man8/glusterfs.8.gz
    /usr/share/man/man8/glusterfsd.8.gz
    /usr/share/man/man8/mount.glusterfs.8.gz

directories in /var:
    /var/lib/glusterd
    /var/log/glusterfs
    /var/run/gluster

plus: documentation in /usr/share/doc, scripts in /usr/share and
configuration in /etc.
"""

Quoting Niels de Vos:

"""
At the moment, I'm thinking about creating a glusterfs-client package,
which would be a dependency for all the GlusterFS clients, without the
need for the glusterfs package in case of glusterfs-api.
"""

Why can't qemu-KVM simply determine at runtime whether glusterfs-libs libraries that it needs are available or not (i.e. with dlopen), and refuse to support libgfapi connections unless it is?  Then we can remove hard dependency from RPM.  This dependency at yum time is really unacceptable to me, causes many problems.

It should check gluster version is high enough before using it though.  There is a huge variation on gluster versions between RHEL6, RHEL7 and RHGS and it's not clear to me whether there is any backwards compatibility and if so what versions?

(In reply to Ben England from comment #8)
> Why can't qemu-KVM simply determine at runtime whether glusterfs-libs
> libraries that it needs are available or not (i.e. with dlopen), and refuse
> to support libgfapi connections unless it is?  Then we can remove hard
> dependency from RPM.  This dependency at yum time is really unacceptable to
> me, causes many problems.

Yes, indeed, see (Fedora) bug 1240965 for more details.

What about Fedora and RHEL7, fix it there first (bz 1240965).  cc'ing people who have an interest in Gluster.  This is consistent with Red Hat's need to reduce number of unnecessary RPM dependencies that bloat RHEL systems.

Tested with RHEL 6.8 with glusterfs-3.7.5-19.el6

Installing 'qemu-kvm' package pulls 'glusterfs-api' as dependency
'glusterfs-api' pulls 'glusterfs' & 'glusterfs-client-xlators'
'glusterfs' pulls 'glusterfs-libs'


[root@ ~]# rpm -qa | grep qemu-kvm
qemu-kvm-0.12.1.2-2.490.el6.x86_64

[root@ ~]# rpm -qR qemu-kvm | grep gluster
glusterfs-api
  
[root@ ~]# rpm -qR glusterfs-api | grep gluster
glusterfs = 3.7.5-19.el6
glusterfs-client-xlators = 3.7.5-19.el6
libglusterfs.so.0()(64bit)  

[root@ ~]# rpm -qR glusterfs | grep gluster
glusterfs-libs = 3.7.5-19.el6
libglusterfs.so.0()(64bit)
  
[root@ ~]# rpm -qR glusterfs-libs | grep gluster
libglusterfs.so.0()(64bit)  
[root@rhs-client10 ~]# rpm -qR glusterfs-client-xlators | grep gluster
libglusterfs.so.0()(64bit) 
 
[root@ ~]# rpm -qa | grep gluster
glusterfs-client-xlators-3.7.5-19.el6.x86_64
glusterfs-libs-3.7.5-19.el6.x86_64
glusterfs-3.7.5-19.el6.x86_64
glusterfs-api-3.7.5-19.el6.x86_64


Installing glusterfs client packages as a dependency of installing 'qemu-kvm' packages doesn't introduces any new gluster binaries

[root@rhs-client10 ~]# rpm -ql glusterfs | grep bin
[root@rhs-client10 ~]# rpm -ql glusterfs-libs | grep bin
[root@rhs-client10 ~]# rpm -ql glusterfs-api | grep bin
[root@rhs-client10 ~]# rpm -ql glusterfs-client-xlators | grep bin

Based on the above observations verifying this bug

Since the problem described in this bug report should be
resolved in a recent advisory, it has been closed with a
resolution of ERRATA.

For information on the advisory, and where to find the updated
files, follow the link below.

If the solution does not work for you, open a new bug report.

https://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHBA-2016-0747.html