Re: Troubleshooting synchronization

[Howard Chu <hyc@symas.com>]

Torsten Schlabach (Tascel eG) wrote:
> Hi Quanah!
> 
>> I suggest you go read the CHANGES log for what has been fixed between
>> 2.4.11 and the latest stable 2.4.19.
> 
> I need to say, it worries me a bit that for problems with a core feature
> which has been around for quite some time, the answer is more often that
> I like to hear: You need to use the latest version released last week /
> month or so.

Generally the reason for very old bugs to be fixed is because no one ever
reported any problems in that area until recently. That says that not enough
testing occurred to catch it earlier, or that people who ran into the bugs
didn't report them earlier.

> I have indeed read the CHANGES and seen that some issues have been
> fixed. I have no idea if we are affected by those issues or now.

> Also how would I know that *now* in 2.4.19 all problems are fixed and
> the answer next week won't be: You need to use 2.4.20.

Subscribe to the openldap-bugs mailing list and monitor what bugs we're
currently investigating and what patches we're currently testing and looking
for feedback on.

> But as this is a FOSS project and not a product we pay for, we
> understand that we should not blame people but try and help if we find a
> a problem.
> 
> For that reason I have asked in my email for help on *understanding* and
> *diagnosing* problems to have a chance to contribute in case we will
> find any new issues.

The first rule is make sure you're working with current source. Diagnosing
problems that have already been fixed just wastes everyone's time.

Next, read the documentation and the test cases in the test suite to see how
things work, or how things are expected to work. That's the best way to
understand the system.

When you run into problems that our test cases don't cover, write a new test
case that addresses it. The bugs that get fixed the fastest are the ones that
are reported with enough information to reliably reproduce them. The best
situation is to include a test case that we can add to our test suite to
ensure that the situation is always tested for from then on, to detect
regressions.

> Also our customers may not like it if in case of a problem we tell them:
> Let's wait if in some weeks a new release will come which will fix it or
> not. So I'd rather be in a position to get my hands dirty myself in case
> of problems.

A good realization, but generally you should have the answer to this question
in hand before you get your first customer...

> Regards,
> Torsten
> 
> 
> Quanah Gibson-Mount schrieb:
>> --On Wednesday, November 04, 2009 1:12 PM +0100 "Torsten Schlabach
>> (Tascel eG)" <tschlabach@tascel.net> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi all!
>>>
>>> I am currently trying to chase some problems in an n-way multi-master
>>> setup with three servers. We have used the instructions at
>>>
>>> http://www.openldap.org/doc/admin24/replication.html#N-Way%20Multi-Master
>>>
>>> as our guidance and we are using OpenLDAP version 2.4.11.
>>
>> I suggest you go read the CHANGES log for what has been fixed between
>> 2.4.11 and the latest stable 2.4.19.
>>
>> --Quanah

-- 
  -- Howard Chu
  CTO, Symas Corp.           http://www.symas.com
  Director, Highland Sun     http://highlandsun.com/hyc/
  Chief Architect, OpenLDAP  http://www.openldap.org/project/