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  • From: Eric Sandall <eric AT sandall.us>
  • To: sm-sorcery AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [SM-Sorcery] Update Options . . .
  • Date: Fri, 24 Oct 2003 11:56:28 -0700

Quoting Jason Flatt <jason AT flattfamily.com>:
> I realize I'm opening up a can of worms here, but I thought I'd throw an
> idea

I have some birds that can help with that. :)

> out to see what others thought of it.
>
> A little background: I have two servers running SMGL that have not been
> updated in a while, one of them in over a year. I am concerned that
> automatically updating a system will break it and I'll have to run over and
> fix it, and I don't necessarily want to sit in front of the computer for
> hours watching lines of text scroll off the screen, so I don't update. I
> realize that SMGL is much more stable now than it ever has been, but the
> thought of having to drop everything, to fix a broken computer that wasn't
> broken before I started, keeps me from updating them.
>
> I have been wondering how I could keep those servers more up to date
> automatically w/o fearing the breakage. Here is one idea.
>
> What I'm wondering is if it would be possible to create a description or
> level
> of a spell update and a way to update a system only to that level. For
> example, using something like a FIX_LEVEL variable in DETAILS or a separate
> FIX_LEVEL file which has a set of predefined settings like security, bug and
>
> normal (as examples, feel free to expand or modify). Then running something
>
> like 'sorcery system-update security' would only update sorcery and those
> spells which have been marked as security fixes, etc.
>
> Then I could feel reasonably comfortable that an automated update run weekly
>
> would not break the computer and/or would be easier to locate and fix a
> problem.
>
> Thoughts, comments, opinions?

The main problem with this (that I see) is how do you know when to change the
severity? Lets say I add a patch to fix some security hole, so I set
FIX_LEVEL="security", I then fix a small bug in the package: Should I change
FIX_LEVEL to "bug", or leave it at "security"? If you only wanted "security"
updates, and hadn't updated between those two fixes, and we now changed
FIX_LEVEL to the latest change, you wouldn't get the security fix.

Now, lets say that we get past that problem there, and it's now a year later
and
I do a version update, so FIX_LEVEL="version", and you hadn't updated back
then
when the "security" and "bug" fixes came out for some reason, now the
FIX_LEVEL
is just "version" and you recently decide to update, but the level is only
"version", which doesn't match your paranoid setting of "security" only, you
won't receive the security update (which is probably included in the new
version) nor the spell bug fix.

I think it would just add an extra layer of complexity. Also, don't we
already
support some SECURITY file/field?

I'm not sure if this is quite what you were thinking, so feel free to lambast
me
with your whit. ;)

-sandalle

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Eric Sandall | Source Mage GNU/Linux Developer
eric AT sandall.us | http://www.sourcemage.org/
http://eric.sandall.us/ | SysAdmin @ Inst. Shock Physics @ WSU
http://counter.li.org/ #196285 | http://www.shock.wsu.edu/

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