[pve-devel] [RFC qemu-server] apt hook: warn against using 'upgrade' command

[Thomas Lamprecht]

Am 06/09/2024 um 12:40 schrieb Fiona Ebner:
> Many people will use 'upgrade' instead of 'full-upgrade' or
> 'dist-upgrade' (e.g. [0][1]) despite the documentation explicitly
> mentioning 'dist-upgrade' [3]. Proxmox VE uses different packaging
> guarantees than Debian and using 'upgrade' can lead to a broken
> system [2].
> 
> The match is kept simple, to not accidentally catch things like
>> -o 'foo=bar upgrade baz'
> and trip up advanced users.
> 
> It does not catch invocations with '-y' either, making it less likely
> to break automated user scripts. Although they should not use
> 'upgrade' either, it still would be bad to break them. If the risk is
> still considered too high, this change should wait until a major or
> at least point release.
> 
> To avoid false positives, it would be necessary to properly parse
> options, which is likely not worth the effort.
> 
> A downside is that the hook is only invoked after the user confirms
> the upgrade, but there doesn't seem to be an early enough hook entry
> (DPkg::Pre-Invoke is also too late). Since this is just an additional
> safety warning to guide new users, it should still be good enough.
> 
> [0]: https://forum.proxmox.com/threads/150217/post-680158
> [1]: https://forum.proxmox.com/threads/140580/post-630419
> [2]: https://www.reddit.com/r/Proxmox/comments/ujqig9/use_apt_distupgrade_or_the_gui_not_apt_upgrade/
> [3]: https://pve.proxmox.com/pve-docs/chapter-sysadmin.html#system_software_updates
> 

yeah, it's something I considered here and then but never pulled through,
as it just somehow doesn't feel right...

But it's definitively a real problem, and so I surely won't block this on
the basis of some gut feeling, I'd rather like to hear Fabian's opinion on
it.