Bug #17437

Check which 4.x base versions we need to support upgrades for

Added by intrigeri 2020-01-14 08:19:49 . Updated 2020-04-17 23:55:07 .

Status:
Resolved
Priority:
Normal
Assignee:
intrigeri
Category:
Target version:
Tails_4.6
Start date:
Due date:
% Done:

0%

Feature Branch:
Type of work:
Research
Blueprint:

Starter:
Affected tool:
Deliverable for:

Description

For 4.2.2 we’re supporting (v2) upgrades for devices that were initially installed with any version among 4.0~beta1, 4.0~beta2, 4.0~rc1, 4.0, 4.1, 4.1.1, and 4.2. That is, we generated 7 IUKs. The status quo is that we’ll be doing this for every subsequent 4.x release, and the number of IUKs to generate will grow each time.

I was wondering if all these base versions (= initial-install-version) were actually used in the real world.

So I checked which base versions have been used with the Upgrader v2 (Tails 4.2+) so far, with this command on our webserver:

zgrep -E 'upgrade/v2/Tails/4\..*/amd64/stable/upgrades.yml.pgp' \
   /var/log/nginx/tails.boum.org/access.log* \
   | awk '{print $5}' | sort -u

⇒ every final 4.x release appears on the list, but none of 4.0* does, i.e.: so far, none of our IUKs built againt 4.0* has been used. But we should bear in mind that at the time I’m writing this, 4.2 has been released only a week ago, so there could very well be folks who initially installed 4.0~* but did not upgrade to 4.2 yet.

I’ll take a look at these logs regularly and we’ll see if 4.0* pop up. If they don’t, IMO we should consider dropping 4.0* from our list of IUK “source versions”.

In passing, sajolida: it seems to me that with the single SquashFS diff scheme, we have no way anymore to tell, by looking at our logs, which version of Tails people are running. I hope it won’t be a problem.

Subtasks

Related issues

Related to Tails - Bug #17361: Streamline our release process Confirmed
Related to Tails - Bug #17434: Building many IUKs (v2) takes a while on Jenkins Confirmed
Related to Tails - Bug #17435: Building many IUKs (v2) takes a while on the RM's system Confirmed

History

#1 Updated by intrigeri 2020-01-14 08:20:11

  • related to Bug #17361: Streamline our release process added

#2 Updated by intrigeri 2020-01-14 08:20:19

  • related to Bug #17434: Building many IUKs (v2) takes a while on Jenkins added

#3 Updated by intrigeri 2020-01-14 08:20:25

  • related to Bug #17435: Building many IUKs (v2) takes a while on the RM's system added

#4 Updated by intrigeri 2020-01-15 08:04:58

  • Target version changed from Tails_4.3 to Tails_4.4

4.0~beta1 and 4.0~rc1 have already shown up in the logs since the 4.2.2 release. 4.0~beta2 did not yet. So:

  • The good news is that at least a few people did install 4.0~beta1 and 4.0~rc1, with a usage pattern that looks like “production”, real-world usage to me (they’ve upgraded to 4.2 and started it at least once).
  • The bad news is that in the best case, this ticket can lead us to stop supporting upgrades from systems initially installed with 4.0~beta2, which will make a smaller difference (still worth it IMO, but no game changer).

From now on I’ll thus focus on 4.0~beta2 here, but I’ll keep an eye on the other 4.0~* to see if there’s a trend.

Given:

  • We keep 63 days of logs.
  • 4.2 was released on 2020-01-07.
  • I’d like to give ca. 4 months to the folks who installed 4.0~beta2 initially, for upgrading their Tails to 4.2 and restarting it, so their installation registers in our logs.

It follows that:

  1. Next time I should check the logs is ca. 2 months after the 4.2 release, i.e. early March, near the end of the 4.4 cycle ⇒ bumping target version accordingly.
  2. I should check the logs one last time ca. 4 months after the 4.2 release, i.e. early May, near the end of the 4.6 cycle.
  3. Then I can make a proposal.

#5 Updated by intrigeri 2020-02-23 07:47:02

  • Target version changed from Tails_4.4 to Tails_4.6

4.0~beta2 now shows up regularly in the logs. I’ll come back to it in a few months to conclude but it looks like we won’t be able to trim our list of “source versions”.

#6 Updated by intrigeri 2020-04-15 08:28:02

  • Status changed from Confirmed to Resolved

intrigeri wrote:
> 4.0~beta2 now shows up regularly in the logs. I’ll come back to it in a few months to conclude but it looks like we won’t be able to trim our list of “source versions”.

I confirm all source versions are used in the real world, so we can’t drop any of those. Too bad.

#7 Updated by CyrilBrulebois 2020-04-17 23:55:07

Thanks for the investigation.

As far as I can tell, dropping 1 or 2 or 3 releases wouldn’t make much of a difference given the release pace. That’s why I spend some time trying to parallelize things. ;)