Re: [gentoo-server] protecting particular versions?

[Kerin Millar]

On Tue, 2004-09-07 at 15:34, Jacob Walcik wrote:
> i've looked in the portage handbook, and i'm digging in the forums
> now, but i can't seem to find a way to do this.
>
> i've got a production postgres database server running gentoo.  this
> morning, when updating my desktop (also running gentoo) i noticed that
> a new version of postgres is available.
>
> is there some way to tell the postgres server (and the machines that
> use postgres client libraries to connect to it) to ignore that update?
>  i seem to recall there being a mechanism through which you can
> protect certain packages to prevent updates from being applied.

> glsa-check looks interesting, but doesn't satisfy my requirement of
> packages on production machines only being installed from tested
> binaries built on a dev machine (unless i'm missing something).

If I recall correctly, it is possible to "pin" a given version of a
package in the world file. But the sensible (by which I mean "more
complete") option is probably to use /etc/portage/package.mask. For
instance:

# [ ! -e /etc/portage ] && mkdir /etc/portage
# echo ">dev-db/postgresql-7.4.3" >> /etc/portage/package.mask

would effectively hard-mask any version of postgresql above 7.4.3 (thus,
preventing it from being installed). Be warned though, without
maintenance this strategy may cause errors in time. Consider the
following two theoretical scenarios:

1) The 7.4.3 ebuild is eventually pulled from portage, meaning that any
attempted update would fail due to its being masked.

2) Another ebuild has an explicit dependency on a newer version of
postgresql. It will be blocked by the fact that the version it wants is
masked.

Here's an example of how to pin everything on the system:

# qpkg -I -v -nc | sed -e "s/\(.*\)/>\1/" >> /etc/portage/package.mask

You could then edit the list according to your tastes.

Regards,

--Kerin Francis Millar