[Linux-HA] Bugfix release for Heartbeat in old packaging

[Andrew Beekhof]

On Mar 18, 2008, at 9:05 PM, Serge Dubrouski wrote:

> On Tue, Mar 18, 2008 at 6:56 AM, Andrew Beekhof <beekhof at gmail.com>  
> wrote:
>> On Thu, Mar 13, 2008 at 4:00 PM, Serge Dubrouski  
>> <sergeyfd at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Hello -
>>>
>>> Would it be possible to issue a bugfix release for Heartbeat 2.1.3  
>>> in
>>> the old version of packaging, i.e. without Pacmaker as a separate
>>> package?
>>
>> Basically no.
>> As indicated back in December, 2.1.3 was the last combined release.
>> The CRM from that release is now being maintained as the Pacemaker  
>> 0.6
>> stable series which has monthly _bug-fix-only_ updates.
>>
>> Even if I wanted to, and the maintenance overhead of back-porting
>> everything wasn't a show-stopper, I'm not the one who's allowed to
>> authorize a release.
>
>
> Then my other questions is:  Who supports current Heartbeat packages
> suitable for Pacemaker and where I can get sources for them with
> appropriate .spec files?

Source rpms are available at the link below:
   http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/server:/ha-clustering/

Essentially^, it is the _official_ 2.1.3 sources with a spec file that  
doesn't build the CRM.
If you have any questions about the spec file, I'd be happy to answer  
them.

I know it would be nice if we had RHEL4 binaries too, see below, but  
you should be able to do a rpm rebuild without issue.

^ There are also some differences in the way the packages are  
arranged, we took the opportunity to do a cleanup of what files went  
where, but that shouldn't affect most people (if anyone at all).

> Of course it's not my business,

As one of our users, its certainly your business :-)

> but I think that you guys are badly hurting a whole project.

Had the split not occurred, based on recent trends, you would _still_  
be waiting another 3,4,5 months for a release containing the fix.
Instead we were able to release the fix, in a release without any new  
features!, over 2 months ago.

While I'd not claim the current situation is perfect (yet), I would  
claim that things are better than they were before.

> For example Apache officially closed 2.0.XX
> branch and suggest everybody to move to 2.2.X, but they still issue
> bugfixes and security patches for that branch. In your case you
> suggest people to move to 2.1.3, which is known to have some critical
> bugs.

I personally don't encourage people to use the 2.1.3 CRM - we've had  
two bug-fix releases since then and I don't like to recommend releases  
I know to have bugs.
The need for a platform to release bugfixes in a timely manner is why  
I'd been working like crazy to get the Pacemaker packages out the door.

> Of course you can suggest to move to Pacemaker + Heartbeat, but
> packages for such move are available from your site only

Thats hardly my fault ;-)
The world doesn't stop turning just because Alan hasn't put out a new  
release.

Just to re-iterate though, the opensuse.org packages are built from  
the "official" linux-ha.org sources that Alan has tested and tagged.
There is no reason why these packages should be any less reliable than  
any others built from the same sources.

And if you ever find a problem with the packaging, you'll find I'm  
quite prompt at getting them repaired :-)
So far I've had very few problems reported in that area.

> and you don't have packages for some critical OSes like RHEL 4.0/ 
> CentOS 4.0.

At the moment we have binaries (and source packages) for 17 of the  
most popular distro versions and 2 architectures.
Its unfortunate that we don't yet include your choice.

I've been trying to get CentOS4/RHEL4 added to the list, however so  
far we've not been able to get 10 potential users to demonstrate  
enough demand for them to be added.