Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2000 18:43:02 +1000 From: Sue Blake <sue@welearn.com.au> To: "C. Stephen Gunn" <csg@waterspout.com> Cc: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Outdated rdist in FreeBSD Base Message-ID: <20000418184259.U3179@welearn.com.au> In-Reply-To: <200004180408.XAA00886@dustdevil.waterspout.com>; from C. Stephen Gunn on Mon, Apr 17, 2000 at 11:08:03PM -0500 References: <200004180408.XAA00886@dustdevil.waterspout.com>
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On Mon, Apr 17, 2000 at 11:08:03PM -0500, C. Stephen Gunn wrote: > I was discussing the out-of-date rdist in FreeBSD (there is an up > to date version in ports) on #BSDCode tonight. Last fall the > license changed on rdist v6, and it's made available under an Open > Source license now. > > I send-pr'd a tarball that would add the new version to /usr/src/contrib, > but it was apparently never committed. > > Considering most people have moved towards rsync or other alternatives, > the consensus on IRC was to remove the out-of-date rdist from the > base system, and to allow rdist users to install rdist6 from the > ports collection if needed. > > Continuing to ship an out-of-date version in the base isn't desirable. Sounds good to me, but I have one concern. v6 works fundamentally differently to and is incompatible with the old rdist, if ours is the same as the old rdist that was in BSD/OS. It is quite unfortunate that two programs using different protocols have been given the same name. Here's what could happen to us. Recently I've had to make repairs where old BSD systems were unexpectedly unable to rdist with Linux systems which use rdist v6. The cost of this incompatibility was great. The rdist6 docs said that Linux's rdist could be made to talk to old rdist if it was set up that way and an extra executable was added to the system, but that extra executable was not provided with Linux nor with rdist and despite much searching it was nowhere to be found (NIH?). The "Compatibility" section of the rdist6 docs, also readable at http://www.MagniComp.com/rdist/ explains the issues rather optimistically. From my reading of this and your post, when we remove the old rdist from FreeBSD we will no longer have any means to honour pre-existing cron jobs in a heterogeneous environment. Since both programs are called rdist it would be easy be taken by surprise by the real nature of this change, and to have one's network fall over as a consequence. On the other hand we need v6 in order to be compatible with some other systems. If I'm on the right track here, it would be great if someone could check that newer FreeBSD systems will be able to rdist both ways in a heterogeneous environment, i.e., retain the old rdist executable (either left in the base system or included as part of the v6 port, with a suitable path/filename) and check that with the new rdist installed it is indeed still possible to rdist both ways as the URL above explains. Then we would have made an all round improvement by making this change. -- Regards, -*Sue*- To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-arch" in the body of the message
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