Hi Stephen,

On Thursday 10 February 2005 05:51, stephen white wrote:
> On 10/02/2005, at 2:17 AM, Sune Kloppenborg Jeppesen wrote:
> > We'll only be supporting a subset of Portage with selected server
> > packages,
> > only a subset of USE flags and only x86 for now.
>
> This doesn't really meet my needs, because it will run into the same
> problems as Debian. A stable or frozen tree does NOT meet the
> requirements for CM/QA processes, even if the selected packages are
> perceived to be more stable.
We figured. So we're planning to make the tools available for all to abuse:-)

>
> The problem is that the selected stable packages are only stable for
> the maintainer, and doesn't even begin to handle the range of
> environments and situations which they are deployed into. As Andrew
> Cowie has pointed out, everyone is effectively responsible for creating
> their own distribution - which is why Gentoo is useful as a metatool.
>
> If I take a random snapshot of portage, and subject the packages to
> testing within my environment, then that portage tree is 'stable' for
> my purposes even if it's wildly wrong for everyone else. Therefore I
> need to be able to maintain that snapshot however I need in order to
> keep my environment stable in the face of change.
>
> What I need is a way for glsa-check to be able to apply security
> updates without affecting my portage tree. The updates should overlay
> or be marked somehow, allowing me to continue to use my selected
> portage snapshot baseline without exposing me to security problems over
> time.
This will work in most cases but not all. We'll provide support for 'our' 
snapshots but when a security fix suddenly require an updated eclass or 
something else not provided in the updated ebuild or in your portage snapshot 
you'll have to fix the problem.

> This is something I can handle myself, but I felt the need to point out
> why I think this GLEP19 is going down a dead end. It will not be useful
> and merely replicates current practice.
I am quite sure that many admins out there do not use a clean approach like 
you describe above and would benifit from this initiative. Also if you have 
developed a solid solution so we can mix contents from different snapshots 
without any problems please let us know:-)

-- 
Sune Kloppenborg Jeppesen
Gentoo Linux Security Team

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