AutoQA upgrade path failure makes no sense to me

[Richard W.M. Jones]

Here is the update:

https://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/libguestfs-1.6.2-1.fc13.7

Here's the failed test result:

http://autoqa.fedoraproject.org/results/87921-autotest/qa03.c.fedoraproject....

This is pretty confusing.

Why does it mention other packages != libguestfs?

It seems to be saying after much head-scratching and decoding that an
update to dist-f14 (ie. the original ancient released version without
updates) would fail, but how could anyone do that?

Rich.

[Adam Williamson]

On Tue, 2011-04-26 at 21:59 +0100, Richard W.M. Jones wrote:
> Here is the update:
>
> https://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/libguestfs-1.6.2-1.fc13.7
>
> Here's the failed test result:
>
> http://autoqa.fedoraproject.org/results/87921-autotest/qa03.c.fedoraproject....
>
> This is pretty confusing.
>
> Why does it mention other packages != libguestfs?
>
> It seems to be saying after much head-scratching and decoding that an
> update to dist-f14 (ie. the original ancient released version without
> updates) would fail, but how could anyone do that?

By using an F14 DVD, of course. But I'm not sure we're meant to support
such a case, it would rather limit your ability to push updates, so this
may well be some kind of bug. Just wanted to point out that it's
certainly possible to do an update to the original frozen package set of
any release. (You can do it with a net install too by disabling the
updates repo, but I don't know why anyone _would_.)

[Kevin Kofler]

Adam Williamson wrote:
> On Tue, 2011-04-26 at 21:59 +0100, Richard W.M. Jones wrote:
> > It seems to be saying after much head-scratching and decoding that an
> > update to dist-f14 (ie. the original ancient released version without
> > updates) would fail, but how could anyone do that?
>
> By using an F14 DVD, of course.

… which is exactly why I've been saying all the time that the DVD must get 
fixed to support enabling the updates repository also for upgrades, not just 
for new installs. In fact, I'd even go as far as saying it should REQUIRE 
it, not just support it. Upgrading without updates enabled is just broken by 
design, it will always lead to breakage. This issue is making DVD upgrades 
close to useless. When support for using the updates repository during 
installations got added, I thought this eons-old bug would finally be fixed, 
but no, the support got added only for fresh installs and not upgrades. :-( 
In its current state, IMHO we'd be better off not supporting DVD upgrades at 
all. (We could hide the feature behind a magic "upgrade" boot parameter like 
RHEL does.) But the best solution would be to fix the bug, not to hide it.

Kevin Kofler

Updates make DVD upgrade insecure. (was: AutoQA upgrade path failure makes no sense to me)

[Björn Persson]

Kevin Kofler wrote:
> I've been saying all the time that the DVD must get 
> fixed to support enabling the updates repository also for upgrades, not
> just  for new installs. In fact, I'd even go as far as saying it should
> REQUIRE it, not just support it.

That would make bug 998 even more urgent than it already is – especially if 
the updates repository were required, as that would change the upgrade from 
secure to insecure. Currently it is possible to upgrade by DVD in a secure 
way. It requires some manual checking but it can be done if you have the 
knowledge. If packages are downloaded during the upgrade, then the upgrade is 
insecure unless Anaconda learns to verify the signatures on the packages it 
downloads.

Björn Persson

[Kamil Paral]

> Here is the update:
>
> https://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/libguestfs-1.6.2-1.fc13.7
>
> Here's the failed test result:
>
> http://autoqa.fedoraproject.org/results/87921-autotest/qa03.c.fedoraproject....
>
> This is pretty confusing.
>
> Why does it mention other packages != libguestfs?

We currently test all pending packages at once. We're working on better presentation of the results.

Of course only libguestfs results are relevant to you.
> It seems to be saying after much head-scratching and decoding that an
> update to dist-f14 (ie. the original ancient released version without
> updates) would fail, but how could anyone do that?

I'm sorry, this is a bug in AutoQA (depcheck test):

https://fedorahosted.org/autoqa/ticket/309

It will be solved in AutoQA 0.4.7, which will be deployed any day now.

Thanks,
Kamil

PS: If you write directly to autoqa-devel list [1] next time, you'll get faster response.

[1] https://fedorahosted.org/mailman/listinfo/autoqa-devel

[Richard W.M. Jones]

On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 04:37:50AM -0400, Kamil Paral wrote:
> > Here is the update:
> >
> > https://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/libguestfs-1.6.2-1.fc13.7
> >
> > Here's the failed test result:
> >
> > http://autoqa.fedoraproject.org/results/87921-autotest/qa03.c.fedoraproject....
> >
> > This is pretty confusing.
> >
> > Why does it mention other packages != libguestfs?
>
> We currently test all pending packages at once. We're working on better presentation of the results.
>
> Of course only libguestfs results are relevant to you.
> > It seems to be saying after much head-scratching and decoding that an
> > update to dist-f14 (ie. the original ancient released version without
> > updates) would fail, but how could anyone do that?
>
> I'm sorry, this is a bug in AutoQA (depcheck test):
>
> https://fedorahosted.org/autoqa/ticket/309
>
> It will be solved in AutoQA 0.4.7, which will be deployed any day now.
>
> Thanks,
> Kamil
>
> PS: If you write directly to autoqa-devel list [1] next time, you'll get faster response.
>
> [1] https://fedorahosted.org/mailman/listinfo/autoqa-devel

Thanks for all the answers.

Rich.