Re: [BackupPC-users] Updated BackupPC 4 Debian Packages

[Paul F. <pg...@fo...>]

Holger Parplies wrote:
 > Hi,
 > 
 > (shouldn't this really be on backuppc-devel?)

not if you want feedback from users.

 > 
 > Ludovic Drolez wrote on 2017-05-30 20:45:35 +0200 [Re: [BackupPC-users] Updated BackupPC 4 Debian Packages]:
 > > > On Fri, May 26, 2017 at 10:34:11PM -0700, Craig Barratt wrote:
 > > > >    No, rsync-bpc isn't usable without BackupPC.
 > 
 > stupid question: should it even be installed in /usr/bin then?
 > 
 > > > > [...]
 > > > >    The main upgrade risk area is around rsync config parameters and arguments
 > > > >    not being compatible between 3.x and 4.x. Configure.pl tries to
 > > > >    extract $Conf{RsyncSshArgs} (a new 4.x setting) from the
 > > > >    old $Conf{RsyncClientCmd} setting.
 > 
 > As far as I can tell, an automatic conversion is not always possible. For

i haven't hit this upgrade yet, since i'm running Ubuntu LTS 16.04.  but
i have to say that from what i'm hearing, i'm not looking forward to
it.  i have multiple hosts with host-specific RsyncClientCmd and
RsyncRestoreCmd settings, sometimes to simply change the port number, but
at other times to provide a wrapper script which tries a couple of addresses
for the host before giving up.

if backuppc isn't going to handle the upgrade seamlessly, i hope there's
a more obvious warning than "do you want to take the maintainer's new
version?".  it should spell out that the upgrade will be a bit complicated,
and that perhaps it should be delayed until the user has enough time.

as i say, i haven't attempted this upgrade yet.  perhaps i'm worried
about nonexistent issues.  you just scared me a bit, is all.  ;-)

paul

 > simple cases, it's easy enough. Varying orders of ssh command line options
 > make things complicated. And in the general case, RsyncClientCmd could be
 > virtually *anything* that leads to a connection to something that emulates
 > an rsync protocol. I'm not sure RsyncSshArgs can be as flexible, or at least
 > that this can be achieved by an automated configuration translation.
 > 
 > Also, I believe configure.pl doesn't handle host configuration files, and I
 > would assume that doing so in postinst would violate policy, because host
 > configuration files don't belong to the package, do they?
 > 
 > Aside from that, there is no longer an RsyncClientRestoreCmd, so part of the
 > formerly possible configuration simply does not translate.
 > 
 > Finally, the configuration file may contain arbitrary Perl code for
 > determining the value of RsyncClientCmd (or anything else, for that matter),
 > defeating conversion as with the web configuration editor.
 > 
 > Thinking about it, for config.pl, simply including a new version would leave
 > it up to the user to resolve the differences between his local version and
 > the new version, wouldn't it?
 > 
 > Regards,
 > Holger
 > 
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=----------------------
paul fox, pg...@fo... (arlington, ma, where it's 51.1 degrees)