<div dir="ltr"><div>Not all projects get back-ported bug fixes. Right now the copy of syslog-ng in epel gets back-ported bug fixes, I don't know very much about who maintains that though.<br></div><div><br></div><div>I think a good example of what you have in mind is what Oracle just did with the Java JDK - a new LTS release (currently JDK 11) will become available every three years but is supported for eight(ish?) years. A new feature release will become available every six months, I don't believe fixes are back-ported.<br></div><div> </div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Fri, Mar 29, 2019 at 11:13 AM Evan Rempel <<a href="mailto:erempel@uvic.ca">erempel@uvic.ca</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<div bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<div class="gmail-m_7093337168929300605moz-cite-prefix">I don't have a versioning issue with
versioned repos. After all, that is what all of the</div>
<div class="gmail-m_7093337168929300605moz-cite-prefix">OS repos are: Redhat 6, Sientific Linux
7, Centos 8, Debian 9, Ubunto 16 etc.</div>
<div class="gmail-m_7093337168929300605moz-cite-prefix"><br>
</div>
<div class="gmail-m_7093337168929300605moz-cite-prefix">The issue I have with syslog-ng in
specific is that once a new version comes out,</div>
<div class="gmail-m_7093337168929300605moz-cite-prefix">the previous version is abandoned. No
bug fixes. No security fixes etc.</div>
<div class="gmail-m_7093337168929300605moz-cite-prefix">This is NOT the same as the OS versions
repos where bug fixes and security fixes</div>
<div class="gmail-m_7093337168929300605moz-cite-prefix">are continued within the repo.</div>
<div class="gmail-m_7093337168929300605moz-cite-prefix"><br>
</div>
<div class="gmail-m_7093337168929300605moz-cite-prefix">What is being suggested in this thread
is for major version repo to be created and</div>
<div class="gmail-m_7093337168929300605moz-cite-prefix">maintained in the long term support
(LTS) role. Given the history of version numbers for</div>
<div class="gmail-m_7093337168929300605moz-cite-prefix">syslog-ng there is no clear major
version transition. Syslog-ng3 (3.0 thorught 3.19)</div>
<div class="gmail-m_7093337168929300605moz-cite-prefix">has been changing, breaking and adding
new features for nearly 6 years. That's</div>
<div class="gmail-m_7093337168929300605moz-cite-prefix">about 3 releases per year. Without some
automated update process this is impossible to</div>
<div class="gmail-m_7093337168929300605moz-cite-prefix">keep up with for anything more that a
handful of systems.<br>
</div>
<div class="gmail-m_7093337168929300605moz-cite-prefix"><br>
</div>
<div class="gmail-m_7093337168929300605moz-cite-prefix">Some thought as to designing a policy
around when a new major version should be created</div>
<div class="gmail-m_7093337168929300605moz-cite-prefix">and supported the long term support and
then automatic updates (not upgrades) would be possible</div>
<div class="gmail-m_7093337168929300605moz-cite-prefix">within that major version and its
associated repo. A balance needs to be found between frequency</div>
<div class="gmail-m_7093337168929300605moz-cite-prefix">of releases and how many versions need
to be supported. I would recommend only 1 release per</div>
<div class="gmail-m_7093337168929300605moz-cite-prefix">year that is supported. That would
limit the number of supported versions to no more than 5.</div>
<div class="gmail-m_7093337168929300605moz-cite-prefix">Possibly include an unsupported head
for folks that absolutely need a latest feature before the</div>
<div class="gmail-m_7093337168929300605moz-cite-prefix">year it is released. That group can
transition to the released version once it is released as a</div>
<div class="gmail-m_7093337168929300605moz-cite-prefix">supported version.</div>
<br>
<div class="gmail-m_7093337168929300605moz-cite-prefix">With regards to the duration of the
long term support, I think that 3 years is a little short.</div>
<div class="gmail-m_7093337168929300605moz-cite-prefix">With a 3 year LTS cycle organizations
that use syslog-ng would have to start the planning, testing</div>
<div class="gmail-m_7093337168929300605moz-cite-prefix">and approval process perhaps as
frequently as every 2 years. Redhat basic support is 5 years</div>
<div class="gmail-m_7093337168929300605moz-cite-prefix">with extended support pushiing that out
to 7 years. That cycle might be a little long and costly for the</div>
<div class="gmail-m_7093337168929300605moz-cite-prefix">vendor/community to support that long.</div>
<div class="gmail-m_7093337168929300605moz-cite-prefix"><br>
</div>
<div class="gmail-m_7093337168929300605moz-cite-prefix">I would propose nothing shorter than 4
years, so that customers can do the planning, testing, approval</div>
<div class="gmail-m_7093337168929300605moz-cite-prefix">and upgrade process every 3 years at a
minimum.<br>
</div>
<div class="gmail-m_7093337168929300605moz-cite-prefix"><br>
</div>
<div class="gmail-m_7093337168929300605moz-cite-prefix"><br>
</div>
<div class="gmail-m_7093337168929300605moz-cite-prefix"><br>
</div>
<div class="gmail-m_7093337168929300605moz-cite-prefix">On 3/29/19 6:23 AM, Nik Ambrosch wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div dir="ltr">
<div>Having a syslog-ng-latest repo to compliment the existing
syslog-ng-317 versioned repos might be a good idea for people
who use these builds for desktops and non-mission-critical
applications.<br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I don't like surprises so I use the versioned repos and
only change when there's a *need* to upgrade (new feature/fix
listed in the changelog).</div>
<div><br>
</div>
</div>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Fri, Mar 29, 2019 at 4:24
AM Czanik, Péter <<a href="mailto:peter.czanik@balabit.com" target="_blank">peter.czanik@balabit.com</a>>
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">Hi,<br>
<br>
Here I offer my personal opinion about rolling releases, which
differs<br>
from the official Balabit opinion...<br>
<br>
When I first started my unofficial syslog-ng rpm packages a
long time<br>
ago in the galaxy, I had a single repository. When a new
release came<br>
out I packaged it into this repo. The feedback I received --
and I<br>
fully agreed as a practicing sysadmin -- that "don't do
automagic<br>
version updates for us, as it might break things". That's how<br>
versioned repositories started. From the admin point of view
an<br>
automatic update is a risk, as even with thousands of
automatic tests,<br>
configurations can break. I recall quite a few breaking
changes, some<br>
intentional, some accidental. From this point of view things
got just<br>
worse when from yearly releases we changed to two months.
Quite a few<br>
places test new releases for more than two months before
adding to<br>
production...<br>
<br>
Here I fully agree with Evan, and this was also a feedback I
often<br>
received in private (unfortunately not on a public mailing
list, blog<br>
post or whatever), that continuous rolling is a major pain. To
best<br>
accommodate such users, there could be an LTS releases next to
the<br>
rolling, which receives fixes for critical problems. To avoid
having<br>
many parallel supported versions, we could align this with a
major<br>
release of Redhat, and keep that version supported for ~3
years.<br>
<br>
In this case there could be a versioned repo for LTS releases:<br>
syslog-ng4<br>
syslog-ng5<br>
etc.<br>
And for those needing the latest features:<br>
syslog-ng-rolling<br>
Where people receive new feature releases automatically as
they appear.<br>
<br>
Bye,<br>
<br>
Peter Czanik (CzP) <<a href="mailto:peter.czanik@balabit.com" target="_blank">peter.czanik@balabit.com</a>><br>
Balabit (a OneIdentity company) / syslog-ng upstream<br>
<a href="https://syslog-ng.com/community/" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://syslog-ng.com/community/</a><br>
<a href="https://twitter.com/PCzanik" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://twitter.com/PCzanik</a><br>
<br>
On Thu, Mar 28, 2019 at 3:57 PM Evan Rempel <<a href="mailto:erempel@uvic.ca" target="_blank">erempel@uvic.ca</a>> wrote:<br>
><br>
> The syslog-ng package maintainers and those deciding on
version numbering need to decide on when backwards
compatibility breaking occurs. IMO there is no reason to not
upgrade to newer versions automatically (whatever schedule the
client performs yum updates), with the one exception being
updates that no longer work with a configuration file. Having
an exact version number in the configuration file (@version
3.17) is not useful if the configuration works with multiple
releases. I would think<br>
> that having a configuration version that remains the same
for the same configuration syntax and semantcs would be more
meaningful. Just thinking in public/out loud, perhaps all
syslog-ng version 3.x use the same configuration syntax, then
the @version would be 3, and when the config syntax is no
longer backwards compatible, a new package name and @version
is produced. This means that package NAMES would need to
contain the major version number "syslog-ng-3" so that you do
NOT get automatic<br>
> updates to "syslog-ng-4".<br>
><br>
> The down side for this is that syslog-ng-3 would need to
be security fixed along side the syslog-ng-4 package for some
support period and then finally deprecated in favour of the
newer syslog-ng-4 package.<br>
><br>
> I find that the postgresql community has done this very
well. They make a major version release once per year which is
how they introduce new features. They provide security fixes
(and most bug fixes) for a period of 5 years. That means that
at any given time they are supporting 5 major releases.
Because this is a published schedule, installations are
guaranteed to be supported/patched for 5 years, which falls
into line with vendor OS support models quite well and
provides the postgresql<br>
> community the ability to make backwards breaking changes
every year.<br>
><br>
> For enterprise environments similar to what Mark
describes below, it is critical that installed packages don't
become abandoned with regards to patches. New features are not
required to be added automatically, but security and bug fixes
are. Some way to get security and bug fixes automatically
without breaking compatibility over a long time preriod (3-5
years) is what is needed to ensure stability, security and
maintainability in an enterprise environment.<br>
><br>
> Our company suffers from these requirements which are
made that much more difficult by packaging decisions like what
syslog-ng has decided on. Don't think I am picking on
syslog-ng. elasticsearch and oracle java suffer from this too.
I am just trying to make the syslog-ng package as awesome as
the syslong-ng program!<br>
><br>
> I am free for further discussing if the package
maintainers want to reach out.<br>
><br>
> Evan Rempel<br>
><br>
> On 3/28/19 6:43 AM, Faine, Mark R. (MSFC-IS40)[NICS]
wrote:<br>
> > You can easily version lock a package in Redhat
(don’t know about SUSE, but I’d imagine so) There is no need
for a separate repository. It makes more sense for the
default to be the latest release and for locking to a specific
release to be the exception. It would probably even be easier
for him to manage.<br>
> ><br>
> > The Redhat version is very old (3.2.5), so I’d
rather not use it but not having a repo that tracks with the
latest release breaks my installation process and means that I
need a few separate tasks just for syslog-ng.<br>
> ><br>
> > If there is an update, I’ll have to remove the repo,
add the new repo, then upgrade. Instead of just doing a yum
update. I usually patch secondary servers first and then a
few weeks later the primary or production servers, I think
that would be enough warning if there were any breaking
changes.<br>
> ><br>
> > Hopefully, if he is going to choose not to provide a
repo with the latest release, I hope he is at least
standardizing the naming convention and URLs so that I can
automate the process, even so my problem is that it would
still be a manual process, at least partially, since I’ll have
to keep track of when a new version is released and update my
configuration accordingly. Manual processes such as this
increase the potential for oversight which could allow a
security vulnerability to slip through.<br>
> ><br>
> > I don’t know how many security vulnerabilities
typically occur with syslog-ng but I know that it’s a big deal
here and we are constantly pushed to keep systems up-to-date.
If there is some random high profile security vulnerability
found on my system, I don’t want to be called out for having
out-of-date software from a third-party repo. I know it’s not
fair but that’s the way they’ll frame it.<br>
> ><br>
> > In the end, I might be forced to use the Redhat
version in the optional rpms repo, though since I’ve been
working with 3.18, it’s possible that there may be things in
my configuration that aren’t even compatible with that
version. The thing is, they’d rather I use the old version
that is, at least allegedly, supported by Redhat, than a
newer, arguably more secure, and more performant version.
Their reasoning breaks down to nothing more than CYA.<br>
> ><br>
> > I guess my point is that I’d hoped to argue for
getting to use the czanik packages for the reasons I’ve
mentioned and knowing already it would be an uphill battle but
if they get a whiff of how the repos are structured it will
make it even harder to justify, perhaps impossible.<br>
> ><br>
> > Thanks,<br>
> > -Mark<br>
> ><br>
> > From: syslog-ng <<a href="mailto:syslog-ng-bounces@lists.balabit.hu" target="_blank">syslog-ng-bounces@lists.balabit.hu</a>>
On Behalf Of Péter, Kókai<br>
> > Sent: Thursday, March 28, 2019 4:16 AM<br>
> > To: Syslog-ng users' and developers' mailing list
<<a href="mailto:syslog-ng@lists.balabit.hu" target="_blank">syslog-ng@lists.balabit.hu</a>><br>
> > Subject: Re: [syslog-ng] Redhat repo<br>
> ><br>
> > Hello,<br>
> ><br>
> > I've just spoke with Czanik Peter - the maintainer
of those repositories.<br>
> ><br>
> > He said that initially there was one repo having the
latest released, but majority of the user want to control when
to upgrade to a newer version from both RHEL and SUSE side.<br>
> > (I guess it is an *easy* way to prevent accidental
updates.)<br>
> > Also he said that there was not much demand for such
structured repository since the shift (only 1-2 person).<br>
> ><br>
> ><br>
> ><br>
> > --<br>
> > Kokan<br>
> ><br>
> > On Wed, Mar 27, 2019 at 3:40 PM Faine, Mark R.
(MSFC-IS40)[NICS] <mailto:<a href="mailto:mark.faine@nasa.gov" target="_blank">mark.faine@nasa.gov</a>> wrote:<br>
> > I have a question about the Redhat repo for the
unofficial OSE builds. It seems as though they are tied to a
specific version. For example, I'm currently using
czanik-syslog-ng318epel6, however, I see that 3.19 has a
different repo specifically for that version. This seems to
be counter to the point of yum repositories and it imposes an
additional maintenance burden. Am I maybe not properly
understanding how it works, and if not, is there a repo that
tracks with the latest stable version?<br>
> ><br>
> > -Mark<br>
> ></blockquote>
</div>
</blockquote>
<br>
</div>
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</blockquote></div>