Hello, Upgrade process with LEDE/OpenWrt installations aren't as smooth as a user would expect. I know that PC have a lot more resources but their upgrade process is normally very straightforward. They can upgrade thousands of packages with little to no intervention.
On LEDE, it is normally not feasible to simply backup all overlay for a upgrade. It works for a disaster recovery but, in an upgrade, extra installed packages might break with the new runtime env. The standard way to upgrade and keep configuration is using the system generated config backup. It works with simple installation but they will fail whenever you need any extra package. It is also designed to ignore all files but the ones listed as config files or in sysupgrade.conf. So, a user must doublecheck the list of files in backup before every upgrade in order to not miss an extra script file, a ssh key, etc. At the same time, backup saves unneeded stuff. For example, every backup includes /etc/profile, /etc/protocol. Do we really need all those files, even when they are still untouched? opkg already keeps hash of all of them for "opkg list-changed-conffiles". Someone that upgrade from CC simply misses all changes to those file, which disables, i.e., the use of /etc/profile.d/. (BTW, /etc/profile.d/ files are not listed as conf file for backup). Who knows what else will break in the future. The user must take note on every extra package was installed on the system before an upgrade in order to know what is needed to be reinstalled post upgrade. There is not an easy way to list every package I asked to be installed. On a overlay system, I can deduce it by looking at /overlay/upper/usr/lib/opkg/info/*.control. /usr/lib/opkg/status was my first try but it does not keep the installation order and new packages appear in the middle of the list. It is also interesting to ignore those packages installed as dependency (Auto-Installed: yes at /usr/lib/opkg/status; not shown by opkg). In my upgrades, I created a new type of backup composed of two parts: 1) save the list of packages I asked to be installed (not auto-installed, not built-in) 2) save all files in overlay, excluding those from packages but including changed config files. This is not ideal, as it does not track changed non-config files from packages (should it? maybe warn about it), but it works flawlessly with 99% of my setups and saves me a lot of time. With those two files, I can flash a new version already providing the file 2) with the option "-f". After the installation, I simply batch install all packages from 1). If any package from 1) is needed to reach the target system, I create a custom image adding those files and flash it, again with the 2) config file. This is my backup script for reference https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B54xzz44RpW6dk1WRTFXX1kwdU0 1) is backup-*-installed_packages_by_user.txt and 2) backup-*-overlay_diff.tgz. It also generates extra backups options. Would it be interesting to: a) stop saving not changed config files in current backup (this is already breaking things) b) create an "expanded backup", based on 2). Add it to luci. c) make luci accept a config file during the flash process (as sysupgrade does) d) save the list of installed packages (all, after flashed, user installed or all of them) in a different file or inside every backup e) there is already a GSoC for the installation of the extra packages (required for unattended upgrade). However, it would also be possible to inform during the flashing that the system must try to download and install those extra packages (included in the backup file) as soon as internet is up. This does not need to work for all scenarios as it is not an unattended nor automatic upgrade. I can create those patches but, at first, I would like to discuss if the idea would be accepted. Regards, --- Luiz Angelo Daros de Luca luizl...@gmail.com _______________________________________________ Lede-dev mailing list Lede-dev@lists.infradead.org http://lists.infradead.org/mailman/listinfo/lede-dev
