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Hi! |
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On Wed, Aug 16, 2006 at 05:07:46PM +0100, Ian P. Christian wrote: |
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> Twice you've suggested there are problems, and it's ok because there |
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> haven't been many. This really isn't the case. I can't afford to |
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In my exp and after reading ml I think constant updates in x86 result in |
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1-2 issues per year. I think it's ok. I think it's better to get these |
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issues isolated, after updating 2-3 packages, and with ability to fallback |
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to previous package versions, than get these issues after massive update |
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of everything every 6-12 months and without ability to fallback. |
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Also I'm usually make `emerge --sync` and then wait 2-3 days reading ml |
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before running `emerge -uDNa world` - only in hope to avoid these |
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'1-2 issues per year', because if something so bad happens ppl in ml |
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usually notify about it very quickly. |
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> systems and test them out properly. Perhaps giving them a week or two's |
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> worth of stress testing. |
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Yeah, I'm doing this 1-2 week stress testing by installing updates on |
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developers servers first, then on production servers. But this really |
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needed then some core package updated - linux kernel, perl, mysql, apache - |
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everybody has own list of critical packages and it isn't too big usually. |
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> I'm sorry, but that is just crazy talk ;) |
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> You clearly don't deal with PHP, where a point release can break a LOT |
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> of things, some things you might not notice by loading 2 or 3 pages from |
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> a website. |
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Yeah, you right about me. I don't deal with PHP and I never administrate |
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more than 5-6 servers. :) But I think it happens sometime, so this |
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discussion is very interesting for me - I wanna learn other's experience |
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and be ready for situations where my own experience will not work anymore. |
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It still isn't clear for me why update strategy for 100 servers differ |
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from 5-6 servers. I don't believe in 100 servers doing really DIFFERENT |
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tasks with really different configurations (at least - in all these |
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servers managed by single admin :)). If most of these server has similar |
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configurations then it's ease to setup few test servers updated |
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constantly and have production servers updated with some delay after test |
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servers. |
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P.S. About PHP. I don't deal with PHP because of only one reason: |
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I convince my boss what PHP is too unsecure (Ohh, I feel millions of PHP |
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fanatics will kill me now :)) and we moved all our PHP apps into |
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dedicated server, which we specially buy for this task, and I'm not really |
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think about security and updates of this server - I'm sure it can be hacked |
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just because of holes in PHP scripts which I can't audit and fix. |
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This may sounds terribly, but... overall security equal to security of |
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weakness place, and I don't think my attitude to updating this server |
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lowering it overall security. Myself, selecting between hacking one of |
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apache/ssh/qmail services on non-updated-in-12-months server with Hardened |
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Gentoo and hacking a lot of different (both custom and opensource) PHP apps |
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on this server will choose PHP without thinking too much. :) |
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-- |
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WBR, Alex. |
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