A Look At The Most Promising Next-Gen Linux Software Update Mechanisms

[starshipeleven]

*lol* That's so backwards... Do you know why you are saying "does stuff ... for a reason"?

Because I know you cannot understand complex explanations, dumbass.

Because you don't know what it does and why it does it. You assume that it's doing it and this becomes your justification for it being good. The idea that it could be wrong what they are doing simply doesn't occur to you, because you haven't thought this far yet and so you find the thought of criticism a strange one.

Strawmanning hard here.

Their approach is to only support installation routines and when it fails do they rollback the file system.

There is no such thing as "rolling back the filesystem" outside of btrfs that can snapshot stuff, and btrfs can do that without reboot.

We are however technology-wise much further than what they are proposing to be the future. We deliberately do not want the reboot method and reject it, because there are smarter, more strategic, less invasive and less disruptive methods of doing it. These are more complex methods, but this is why we choose Linux, because we don't shy away from it.

Please state such "smarter, more strategic, less invasive and less disruptive methods" as everyone would love to use them.

Do take a look at the example scenario they've given. Ask yourself, who installs updates like this in a production environment?!

Servers have scheduled downtimes, not 0 downtime.

In a production environment do you simply not change what is working for you unless you have a very good reason to do so. Just the indication of an update alone cannot be that reason.

Production environments have SCHEDULED mainteneance, they don't run 24/7 for a decade without a reboot because OUR LORD UPTIME BE PRAISE UPON HIM!!!!
They are talking of security updates or features needed by the company deploying the server.

Yet, this is what they are proposing we should be doing in the future... install an update because it's there, and almost like tossing a coin, ... if it fails "rollback and reboot".

You don't need to have a degree in IT or any other science to under stand how bad this concept is. Just ask yourself what you will tell your boss when an update broke the system and your company is now making a loss, because some message said "I'm an update. Please install me!" Hell, it doesn't even need to be break the system, but only cause a drop out of 5 minutes, which can cost some companies millions. Give this a thought and you'll understand what they are trying to sell is meant for the consumer and small sever market at best.

Another large strawman where you think they want stuff that exists only in your mind.

As a system administrator do you not touch the production environment unless it's required. You want software which can smartly uninstall itself without interrupting the remaining system and you want this to be the dominant solution. Of course, you also keep independent backups of the systems, because you know you cannot base your job purely on trust and believes, but because you know that safety and security are things we have until we lose them and that we can lose them at any time with no warning at all.

FYI: scheduled mainteneance usually lasts less than "full server restore from backups", especially if the backups are still on tape, so if you can do stuff during scheduled mainteneance that have less chances of requiring a full server restore, why the fuck not.

Try to sell "rollback and reboot" to Veteran Unix Admins is not more than a slap into their faces.

fixed. And by that I mean the systemd hater crowd that poses as veteran unix admins.

[starshipeleven]

*lol* That's so backwards... Do you know why you are saying "does stuff ... for a reason"?

Because I know you cannot understand complex explanations, dumbass.

Because you don't know what it does and why it does it. You assume that it's doing it and this becomes your justification for it being good. The idea that it could be wrong what they are doing simply doesn't occur to you, because you haven't thought this far yet and so you find the thought of criticism a strange one.

Strawmanning hard here.

Their approach is to only support installation routines and when it fails do they rollback the file system.

There is no such thing as "rolling back the filesystem" outside of btrfs that can snapshot stuff, and btrfs can do that without reboot.

We are however technology-wise much further than what they are proposing to be the future. We deliberately do not want the reboot method and reject it, because there are smarter, more strategic, less invasive and less disruptive methods of doing it. These are more complex methods, but this is why we choose Linux, because we don't shy away from it.

Please state such "smarter, more strategic, less invasive and less disruptive methods" as everyone would love to use them.

Do take a look at the example scenario they've given. Ask yourself, who installs updates like this in a production environment?!

Servers have scheduled downtimes, not 0 downtime.

In a production environment do you simply not change what is working for you unless you have a very good reason to do so. Just the indication of an update alone cannot be that reason.

Production environments have SCHEDULED mainteneance, they don't run 24/7 for a decade without a reboot because OUR LORD UPTIME BE PRAISE UPON HIM!!!!
They are talking of security updates or features needed by the company deploying the server.

Yet, this is what they are proposing we should be doing in the future... install an update because it's there, and almost like tossing a coin, ... if it fails "rollback and reboot".

You don't need to have a degree in IT or any other science to under stand how bad this concept is. Just ask yourself what you will tell your boss when an update broke the system and your company is now making a loss, because some message said "I'm an update. Please install me!" Hell, it doesn't even need to be break the system, but only cause a drop out of 5 minutes, which can cost some companies millions. Give this a thought and you'll understand what they are trying to sell is meant for the consumer and small sever market at best.

Another large strawman where you think they want stuff that exists only in your mind.

As a system administrator do you not touch the production environment unless it's required. You want software which can smartly uninstall itself without interrupting the remaining system and you want this to be the dominant solution. Of course, you also keep independent backups of the systems, because you know you cannot base your job purely on trust and believes, but because you know that safety and security are things we have until we lose them and that we can lose them at any time with no warning at all.

FYI: scheduled mainteneance usually lasts less than "full server restore from backups", especially if the backups are still on tape, so if you can do stuff during scheduled mainteneance that have less chances of requiring a full server restore, why the fuck not.

Try to sell "rollback and reboot" to Veteran Unix Admins is not more than a slap into their faces.

fixed. And by that I mean the systemd hater crowd that poses as veteran unix admins.

[starshipeleven]

unapproved post...

[sdack]

unapproved post...

Double post and unapproved posts. That's so you. And of course you, too, are responding to comments like you are struggling with each sentence. *lol*

[liam]

why i should believe in random bullshit? redhat is the opensource company. all of their products are open source. unlike of canonical, google and most other "open" companies

Exactly this. Pretty much everything they can, they open source. It may take awhile (like with Origin) but that's usually b/c they want to get it be roughly in shape.
I understand the idea of corporate mistrust but I don't understand why you would apply such thinking without regard to evidence.

BTW, thanks phoronix for fixing the ignore list!

[ssokolow]

Also, those shiny new languages all started out written in .... you guessed it, C/C++.

Actually, that's not quite correct. Rust started out written in OCaml.

[sdack]

Exactly this. Pretty much everything they can, they open source. ...

It was a question you had to answer. But you fear to give an answer and hide behind blissful trolling. RedHat is a business and needs to make money. If they decide dumbing down Linux is a way for them to make money then that's what they'll do. You don't have a problem with this, because they are dumbing it down for YOU, and that's why you are so afraid to give an answer.

[starshipeleven]

Double post and unapproved posts. That's so you. And of course you, too, are responding to comments like you are struggling with each sentence. *lol*

0-content generic name-calling. This isn't even "you", it's "generic whiny troll".

[starshipeleven]

It was a question you had to answer. But you fear to give an answer and hide behind blissful trolling. RedHat is a business and needs to make money. If they decide dumbing down Linux is a way for them to make money then that's what they'll do. You don't have a problem with this, because they are dumbing it down for YOU, and that's why you are so afraid to give an answer.

this poster is unable to read answers as his mind replaces them with his own fantasy.

[sdack]

this poster is unable to read answers as his mind replaces them with his own fantasy.

Oh, you're wrong. I certainly recognised the evasion. It still doesn't make it an answer, but it amuses me to see how you evade it. I also never called you names. You are however free to call yourself anything you want and if you want to believe that I called you dumb or stupid then you can do this, too. It's your judgement about yourself you're making, not mine. Personally do I find your self-pity sad, but I very much doubt you'd care for what makes me sad. Can you just answer the question, please?