How to ensure minimum versions of packages?

[Richard W.M. Jones]

Maybe this is a kickstart question, I don't know.

I've discovered that you can't specify versions of packages in the
live CD kickstart file, eg the following doesn't work:

  %packages
  dhclient >= 4.0.0

For my application I really do need to specify minimum package
versions, otherwise users will end up with a live CD that definitely
won't work.  Any suggestions about how to enforce this?

Rich.

-- 
Richard Jones, Emerging Technologies, Red Hat  http://et.redhat.com/~rjones
virt-top is 'top' for virtual machines.  Tiny program with many
powerful monitoring features, net stats, disk stats, logging, etc.
http://et.redhat.com/~rjones/virt-top

[Bill Nottingham]

Richard W.M. Jones (rjones(a)redhat.com) said: 
>  
>  Maybe this is a kickstart question, I don't know.
>  
>  I've discovered that you can't specify versions of packages in the
>  live CD kickstart file, eg the following doesn't work:
>  
>    %packages
>    dhclient >= 4.0.0
>  
>  For my application I really do need to specify minimum package
>  versions, otherwise users will end up with a live CD that definitely
>  won't work.  Any suggestions about how to enforce this? 
Point the config at a proper repo that has the packages you
know work?

Bill

[Tim Wood]

You could create a RPM that requires what you want.  The RPM doesn't 
have to do anything else.  The RPM build script should be pretty short ;-) .

Tim

> > Maybe this is a kickstart question, I don't know.
> >
> > I've discovered that you can't specify versions of packages in the
> > live CD kickstart file, eg the following doesn't work:
> >
> >   %packages
> >   dhclient >= 4.0.0
> >
> > For my application I really do need to specify minimum package
> > versions, otherwise users will end up with a live CD that definitely
> > won't work.  Any suggestions about how to enforce this?
> >

[Richard W.M. Jones]

On Wed, Mar 19, 2008 at 01:41:55PM -0600, Tim Wood wrote:
>  You could create a RPM that requires what you want.  The RPM
> doesn't have 
>  to do anything else.  The RPM build script should be pretty short ;-) . 
Unfortunately this doesn't work.  It seems like kickstart will happily
install an inconsistent set of packages, as in this screenshot from a
live CD booted under qemu:

  http://www.annexia.org/tmp/livecd.png

Note that my meta-package, virt-p2v, is set to require ocaml-gettext,
but this package isn't installed (because I missed it out of my local
repository by accident), nor is that dependency provided by any other
package.

Rich.

-- 
Richard Jones, Emerging Technologies, Red Hat  http://et.redhat.com/~rjones
virt-p2v converts physical machines to virtual machines.  Boot with a
live CD or over the network (PXE) and turn machines into Xen guests.
http://et.redhat.com/~rjones/virt-p2v

[Jeremy Katz]

On Sat, 2008-03-22 at 16:39 +0000, Richard W.M. Jones wrote:
>  On Wed, Mar 19, 2008 at 01:41:55PM -0600, Tim Wood wrote:
>  > You could create a RPM that requires what you want.  The RPM doesn't have 
>  > to do anything else.  The RPM build script should be pretty short ;-) .
>  
>  Unfortunately this doesn't work.  It seems like kickstart will happily
>  install an inconsistent set of packages, as in this screenshot from a
>  live CD booted under qemu: 
Which version of livecd-tools are you using?  And did you specify any
arguments to %packages?

Jeremy

[Richard W.M. Jones]

On Sun, Mar 23, 2008 at 09:08:06PM -0400, Jeremy Katz wrote:
>  On Sat, 2008-03-22 at 16:39 +0000, Richard W.M. Jones wrote:
>  > On Wed, Mar 19, 2008 at 01:41:55PM -0600, Tim Wood wrote:
>  > > You could create a RPM that requires what you want.  The RPM doesn't have 
>  > > to do anything else.  The RPM build script should be pretty short ;-) .
>  > 
>  > Unfortunately this doesn't work.  It seems like kickstart will happily
>  > install an inconsistent set of packages, as in this screenshot from a
>  > live CD booted under qemu:
>  
>  Which version of livecd-tools are you using?  And did you specify any
>  arguments to %packages? 
livecd-tools-013 on F8.  I think that's quite old isn't it?  I notice
the newest version in Fedora is 015.

No arguments to %packages on that particular CD, but I am going to add
--excludedocs in future versions.

It didn't give any warnings about the missing package during the
build.

Rich.

-- 
Richard Jones, Emerging Technologies, Red Hat  http://et.redhat.com/~rjones
virt-p2v converts physical machines to virtual machines.  Boot with a
live CD or over the network (PXE) and turn machines into Xen guests.
http://et.redhat.com/~rjones/virt-p2v

[Jeremy Katz]

On Mon, 2008-03-24 at 22:58 +0000, Richard W.M. Jones wrote:
>  On Sun, Mar 23, 2008 at 09:08:06PM -0400, Jeremy Katz wrote:
>  > On Sat, 2008-03-22 at 16:39 +0000, Richard W.M. Jones wrote:
>  > > On Wed, Mar 19, 2008 at 01:41:55PM -0600, Tim Wood wrote:
>  > > > You could create a RPM that requires what you want.  The RPM doesn't
> have 
>  > > > to do anything else.  The RPM build script should be pretty short ;-) .
>  > > 
>  > > Unfortunately this doesn't work.  It seems like kickstart will happily
>  > > install an inconsistent set of packages, as in this screenshot from a
>  > > live CD booted under qemu:
>  > 
>  > Which version of livecd-tools are you using?  And did you specify any
>  > arguments to %packages?
>  
>  livecd-tools-013 on F8.  I think that's quite old isn't it?  I notice
>  the newest version in Fedora is 015. 
It's the Fedora 8 version.  Lots of changes afoot in Fedora 9 :-)  In
theory, we should be aborting if building the transaction shows
unresolved deps.  But, I know I've accidentally done a release or two
with that disabled because it made my testing simpler and then I forgot
to remove that when committing :-/

Jeremy

[Richard W.M. Jones]

On Wed, Mar 19, 2008 at 02:52:16PM -0400, Bill Nottingham wrote:
>  Richard W.M. Jones (rjones(a)redhat.com) said: 
>  > 
>  > Maybe this is a kickstart question, I don't know.
>  > 
>  > I've discovered that you can't specify versions of packages in the
>  > live CD kickstart file, eg the following doesn't work:
>  > 
>  >   %packages
>  >   dhclient >= 4.0.0
>  > 
>  > For my application I really do need to specify minimum package
>  > versions, otherwise users will end up with a live CD that definitely
>  > won't work.  Any suggestions about how to enforce this?
>  
>  Point the config at a proper repo that has the packages you
>  know work? 
Such a repo doesn't yet exist.  I'm still working on getting the right
versions into Fedora.

I'll do the "meta RPM" thing as suggested in another reply.  That'll
also let me remove some hackish stuff in the %post script so it's a
win all round.

Rich.

-- 
Richard Jones, Emerging Technologies, Red Hat  http://et.redhat.com/~rjones
virt-p2v converts physical machines to virtual machines.  Boot with a
live CD or over the network (PXE) and turn machines into Xen guests.
http://et.redhat.com/~rjones/virt-p2v

[Jesse Keating]

On Wed, 2008-03-19 at 18:06 +0000, Richard W.M. Jones wrote:
>  I've discovered that you can't specify versions of packages
> in the
>  live CD kickstart file, eg the following doesn't work:
>  
>    %packages
>    dhclient >= 4.0.0
>  
>  For my application I really do need to specify minimum package
>  versions, otherwise users will end up with a live CD that definitely
>  won't work.  Any suggestions about how to enforce this?
>   
Yum isn't going to pull in arbitrary versions, it's going to pull in the
latest version.  Are you envisioning a scenario where the latest version
isn't available to the user and you want the tool to bark about it and
not compose their image?  Why aren't your package Requires setup
properly to handle this?

-- 
Jesse Keating
Fedora -- All my bits are free, are yours?