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Decide on best practice for patching live-team packages for VyOS build system
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Description

In the equuleus branch, both debootstrap and live-build require unmerged patches. For debootstrap, the current practice is to patch within the Dockerfile; the same method is suggested for live-build:

https://phabricator.vyos.net/T1710

However, one can raise the objection that this is an improper change to a user's build environment, without warning; a suggested alternative is to maintain our own versions of these packages, especially as the live-team is slow in merging patches.

Details

Difficulty level
Unknown (require assessment)
Version
-
Why the issue appeared?
Will be filled on close
Is it a breaking change?
Unspecified (possibly destroys the router)
Issue type
Internal change (not visible to end users)

Event Timeline

Myself I'm in favor of maintaining a fork and asking people to install it. We can add a version check to the ./configure script to make sure it stops and tells the user what to do if the version is not patched.

Arguments for:

  • live-build is not a fast changing program and fork doesn't take much maintenance
  • no one knows when the patch makes it to the upstream version
  • it's a package people normally don't have installed so asking to install a modified version is not going to conflict with their existing setup
  • installing packages against user's will is a bad idea

When we say building is only supported in our Docker environment - is it even an issue? Just patch it during preparation of the container and we‘re all set.

As dependencies and complexity grows Docker is currently the only sane was of building a package/image.

jestabro moved this task from Need Triage to Finished on the VyOS 1.3 Equuleus board.
erkin set Issue type to Internal change (not visible to end users).Aug 31 2021, 6:35 PM