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Re: [p2-dev] Product publishing and product update

https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=279659

 

There is no update, only install and uninstall … which when combined can substitute for update.

 

 

From: p2-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:p2-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Yousouf, Shenol
Sent: Monday, September 27, 2010 10:05 AM
To: P2 developer discussions
Subject: Re: [p2-dev] Product publishing and product update

 

Hi,

 

First, thanks for the dedicated support and the quick responses ! J

 

I checked the official p2 director documentation but none of  the described arguments do not explicitly point to an update functionality. Only the options for install and uninstall of IUs are quite apparent.

 

I also reviewed the options constants in DirectorApplication to make sure that none of them are  missed in the documentation.

 

Maybe it is some combination of parameters which is not known to me. I’ll check for further information on the net but I’d really appreciate any help to speed up resolving this case.

 

Best regards,

Shenny

 

 

From: p2-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:p2-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Jeff McAffer
Sent: Monday, September 27, 2010 4:26 PM
To: P2 developer discussions
Subject: Re: [p2-dev] Product publishing and product update

 

Seems in step 7 you are trying to *install* the new version of the product rather than *update* the existing version.  This seems like the source of the difficulty. I don't remember the various director arguments but there likely is one that does update.

 

Jeff

 

On 2010-09-27, at 8:28 AM, Yousouf, Shenol wrote:

 

Hi,

 

Yep, wrong setup is the most probable reason for that; however, I tried to minimize the product configuration in order to avoid dependencies to other factors as much as possible and I still can’t see where the problem is coming from. Here is what I am doing:

 

1. Download standard Eclipse IDE, at least version 3.6. Personally, I tested on Eclipse 3.6.1 and 3.7 M2a to the same effect. Run it without any modifications in a clean new workspace.

 

2. In the IDE create an empty bundle (no activator, no sources) and a feature which includes this bundle.

 

3. Create a new Product Configuration (File à New à Product Configuration…) which includes only this feature. The option for native launcher artifacts in the Product Editor must NOT be checked. (we don’t need any extra IUs). Append some version to the product in the Overview tab.

 

4. Run the “Eclipse Product export wizard” (available as a link in the “Overview” tab in product editor) and publish the product to some directory. The only difference from the default settings is that I uncheck the “Synchronize before exporting” checkbox in the wizard, otherwise the export is not possible (probably because product has no plugin to synch, only a feature). A sample p2 repository which is a result from the first export is attached as “repository1.zip”.

Alternatively, instead of using the wizard, you can first export the feature and then run the product publisher application against the feature repository. The final p2 repo looks identical.

 

5. Run the p2 director application from the IDE to install the just exported minimal product (sample application arguments: ” -os ${target.os} -ws ${target.ws} -arch ${target.arch} -nl ${target.nl} -consoleLog -console -repository file:/e:/temp/test_repo/repository -installIU TestProduct -destination e:/temp/test_install -profile Test -bundlepool e:/temp/test_install”)

 

6. You may want to delete the repository from step 4 to regenerate it again from scratch but it won’t influence the final outcome. Increment the product version in editor and export it again. Note that in the result repository (example is attached as “repository2.zip”) both the product and the included feature versions have increased.

 

7. Try to install the “updated” product with the p2 director application to the same installation location used in step 5. The installation fails with message that looks something like this:

!MESSAGE Only one of the following can be installed at once:

!SUBENTRY 2 org.eclipse.equinox.p2.director 4 0 2010-09-27 14:38:29.642

!MESSAGE Test Product 0.0.1 (TestProduct 0.0.1)

!SUBENTRY 2 org.eclipse.equinox.p2.director 4 0 2010-09-27 14:38:29.642

!MESSAGE Test Product 0.0.2 (TestProduct 0.0.2)”

 

 

I tested this procedure on several different versions of Eclipse and also on the PCs of my colleagues to avoid local setup factors. So I’ll be grateful to anyone who can show me what I am doing wrong here. Thanks in advance !

 

Best regards,

Shenny

 

 

From: p2-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:p2-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Jeff McAffer
Sent: Friday, September 24, 2010 10:44 PM
To: P2 developer discussions
Subject: Re: [p2-dev] Product publishing and product update

 

Must be something quirky in your setup as my customers and I do this all the time.

 

The singleton-ness should not be an issue as you are wanting to update/replace this IU anyway so there will only be one.

 

Jeff

 

 

On 2010-09-24, at 11:17 AM, Yousouf, Shenol wrote:



Hello again,

 

I am continuing with some experiments along the directions that Jeff gave me. I encountered several problems for which I cannot find an explanation. For example, I tried to update the product after incrementing its version in the repository. The update failed again because it lists among its requirements a tooling configuration unit which is a singleton. It looks quite simple:

    <unit id='tooling<product name>.configuration' version='<product version>'>

      <provides size='1'>

        <provided namespace='org.eclipse.equinox.p2.iu' name='tooling<product name>.configuration' version='<product version>'/>

      </provides>

      <touchpoint id='null' version='0.0.0'/>

    </unit>

 

Note that this is generated by the product publisher and cannot be avoided. I don’t have any idea what the purpose of such a basic unit could be but being a singleton and a requirement of the product, it stops the update of the whole product because there is already an IU installed with the same name on the system (actual message from p2 director says “Only one of the following can be installed at once”, concerning this IU).

 

Can anybody tell me why is this configuration unit created at all on publishing ?

 

 

In general, I am very surprised to see how many problems I encounter to implement a “simple” product update given the fact that p2 supports updates of features and bundles out of the box. So far, the most direct approaches I tried failed completely:

-          If I try to update, preserving the same product version (as it is fixed in the .product descriptor), it fails because of conflicting versions of the requirements.

-          If I try to update with an increased version of the product, then the singleton configuration unit stops me.

 

So it seems that my initial concept how the product update should be done is wrong. But then how new versions of products are supposed to be shipped to customers to be consumed immediately by p2 ? How are the customers supposed to perform updates of the whole product (not by individual bundles and features) ?

 

 

Best regards,

Shenny

 

 

 

From: p2-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:p2-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Jeff McAffer
Sent: Friday, September 24, 2010 4:36 AM
To: P2 developer discussions
Subject: Re: [p2-dev] Product publishing and product update

 

There are a couple sides to this.  One is that if you have Product X v 1.2.3.20100923, that should mean something. If you allow ranges as described, then two users installing X 1.2.3.20100923 may not get the same actual software installed. Variation is introduced for example, if user 1 has access to a different set of repos than user 2 or there is a network error for user 1 but not user 2 or the single repo changed between when user 1 and user 2 did their install.


 

Of course, these behaviours *could* also be exactly what you want but certainly some folks free at this non-determinism as a support nightmare.

 

Anyway, looking at features, they allow for things to be *included* or *required*.  Included things have exact version ranges while required things have, generally, wider ranges. Traditionally the notion was that on install, the things *included* by the feature were installed whereas the things *required* merely had to be there. Early update manager didn't even help you find/get/install the required things.  That was goofy so we provided a means for users to say "yeah, get the required stuff also".  Now with p2 we do this automatically without involving the user.  So much for context...

 

It would be reasonable to allow ranges on product content but it would also force the product designer to be very aware of the consequences pointed out at the beginning of this message. I honestly don't know what people would do naturally or what guidance we could/should give them (e.g., what's the default?).

 

Back to your original topic, there is also the possibility of producing new versions of your product that identify the new versions of the components. Product production and distribution in p2 is very light weight and users would see this as incoming new versions of the product (that they know about) vs changes to random components (that they may well not even know exist).  What would you say as the user of some banking product if told that there was a new version of EMF?  "WFT?!"

 

Scenarios vary.  If that does not work for you, you can insulate your product by making it consist of one feature. In that feature, *require* everything that you want to be updatable, include the stuff you want to be fixed (or put this stuff directly in the product).  The product will be bound to the one version of your container feature and the container feature can use ranges.  Beware the problems outlined above with non-determinism.  Note that you can also usethe p2.inf file to do this.  Andew Niefer did a couple blog posts on this a while ago

 

Good luck

Jeff

 

 

On 2010-09-23, at 12:13 PM, Yousouf, Shenol wrote:




Hi all,

 

I noticed that product publishing always sets requirements for a fixed version of the contained bundles/features, i.e. the defined range has its lower and upper boundaries equal like this:

<required namespace="org.eclipse.equinox.p2.iu" name="TestBundle"range="[1.0.0.201009171510,1.0.0.201009171510]" />

while I need something like this:

<required namespace="org.eclipse.equinox.p2.iu" name="TestBundle"range="[1.0.0.201009171510,2.0.0)" />

or even this:

<required namespace="org.eclipse.equinox.p2.iu" name="TestBundle" range="1.0.0.201009171510" /> (which means “any version > 1.0.0.201009171510)

 

 

The .product file format does not support a way to specify a range for its components, only an attribute for a fixed version. The product publisher also has no notion how to generate version ranges – it simply sets the range boundaries equal to the component version (see method AbstractPublisherAction.createIURequirements() for reference). So far, I cannot find a way how to workaround this issue and in my opinion it as a limitation of the product definition concept.

 

Why is this so important ? The use case is like this:

I am developing a product consisting of several components which is getting published on an update site on a regular basis. The components receive frequent updates in the p2 repository and their versions are incremented which is reflected in the requirements of the published product. However, once I install this product, I cannot apply updates to the system any more. The updates are refused because version ranges of the requirements for the installed and the updated products do not intersect which seems to make them incompatible.

 

This wouldn’t be the case if it was possible to define open ranges in the product file. For example, the installed product would require a specific component in version range [1.0.0, 2.0.0) while its new version would require it in the range [1.1.0, 2.0.0). This would allow the update to pass because obviously range [1.1.0, 2.0.0) is compatible with (falls into) range [1.0.0, 2.0.0). The way they are generated now is [1.0.0, 1.0.0] for the old product and [1.1.0,1.1.0] for the new one. Since these two ranges do not intersect, the update is not possible.

 

In short, I have two issues and hope to receive some advice from you how to address them:

  • Is it possible to define a product with extended version ranges of its components ?
  • What makes product versions compatible for update ? Why changed version requirements, which come as a natural result of the publishing process, do not allow the product to get updated to the higher version of its included components ?

 

 

Best regards,

Shenny

 

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