Rudder

Status of package management¶

This table only considers latest versions of techniques and generic methods.

• The addupdate action does not work
• We need to handle "update to latest version" manually using a list of available updates to call CFEngine with a precise version
• ncf does not (currently) handles reporting for multiple calls with the same generic method on the same package
• We have to stay compatible with all current package management methods

• Ability to ensure the package is in "latest" version
• Ability to update or install if needed in a single action
• Flexibility on caching/execution frequency to allow:
  • Fast actions (provisioning, security updates, ...)
  • Low overhead on small/embedded devices
• Fix targeting current versions, at least 3.1

Option 1¶

Make one configurable package management method working properly and use it everywhere.

• Use ncf_generic body everywhere in ncf
• Add available updates list support to package_install_*
  • Move rpm support to the generic method
  • Add apt support
• Make list update frequency configurable
  • ncf configuration parameter ?
  • Generic method parameter ?
• Make a new version of RPM and APT package techniques using package_install_

• Some people implemented addupdate using directives with add+update on the same package, which cannot be handled properly with ncf reporting

Option 2¶

Make one configurable package management method working properly in ncf, and fix packages techniques by handling add + update actions

• Use ncf_generic body everywhere in ncf
• Add available updates list support to package_install_*
• Add support for available updates in apt technique
• Make list update frequency configurable in ncf (and maybe in the techniques too)
  • ncf configuration parameter ?
  • Generic method parameter ?

• Duplicates a lot of logic in ncf/techniques

Other notes¶

We should have a plan to migrate to the new CFEngine package promises, which are now the default in 3.9. This should widely simplify our code on new CFEngine version (Rudder 3.2+). We can use if_version macro feature for this, which will be easier if all package operations are done in a single place.