Re: Database corruption revisited.

[Michael Ströder <michael@stroeder.com>]

Cliff Pratt wrote:
> I'm not going to start a debate on packages versus compiled from source,
> since this is not an appropriate forum. However that article misses a
> point or two. I'll just say the following and drop the topic of
> compiling from source.
> 
> Firstly, distro owners do NOT just freeze a package. They freeze at say
> version x.y.z of a package, then they backport fixes to it and produce a
> package x.y.z-v, where the '-v' indicates their modified version of the
> package. There's a good chance that by the time that v is 5 or 6 that
> the major problems will be fixed.

They don't.

> Secondly, I pay for support. If I do not use the supplied version of the
> software, then I do not get support. You might make the point that I
> should therefore go to the distro vendor for support, and not bother
> this list, and the point is a good one, and I will be pursuing that route.

I also often have this discussion with my customers (especially the bigger
ones) who certainly have the same policy and pay for e.g. RHEL support
contracts. But practice shows that those support contracts are not worth the
paper they are written on. They are only for managers who then think
everything's ok. But the same managers will blame *you* if things go wrong.
=> you have to clarify this with your management
=> define a build process in an operational concept

> Thirdly, if I were to listen to all the suppliers of the packages that I
> use I should compile every single one of them! Don't get me wrong - I
> totally understand that approach, and all things being equal I would
> take that approach myself, but it is not possible for me to do that and
> still have a life!

My practice (not theory) is to compile the "important" ones. So for a
mission-critical OpenLDAP server I compile BDB, heimdal (if needed),
cyrus-sasl (if needed) and OpenLDAP from source for a separate prefix to avoid
conflicts with pre-installed packages. Most times I build on customer virtual
machine matching the software installation of the production system. Once you
have simple build scripts in place it's not much effort.

Ciao, Michael.