[atlas] Encouraging people to upgrade software probe versions

Hi Gert,

Thank you for pitching in.

The hardware probes are fully managed by RIPE NCC, and their only purpose is to execute measurements. I agree here, whether to update is up to RIPE NCC.
On software probes, RIPE NCC is not in control of the unit. The software probe may run other services and updating is up to its local sysadmin. Consider operating system updates, which are updated by RIPE NCC on the hardware probes, but cannot be updated on software probes.

To automatically update, the solution here is a simple CRON job which executes yum -q update atlasswprobe periodically (say once per day or so), which was the solution that was part of the RPM up to 5080. Would it help if we add this to the instructions?

Regards,

Michel
> On 9 Jan 2023, at 10:52, Gert Doering <gert at space.net> wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> On Mon, Jan 09, 2023 at 10:19:34AM +0100, Michel Stam wrote:
>> The automatic update for the CentOS package was removed as of 5080. This means that the update to 5080 will still be automatic, but not any more after this (say 5090 onwards).
>> This was a request by several users because Atlas forced the update, which violated their sysadmin policies.
> 
> I find this surprising, to say the least.
> 
> The whole point about ATLAS Probes is "RIPE NCC manages them" - as host
> of a handful of hardware probes, I have no say in whether I want them
> upgraded or not, or what they should do or not do.
> 
> So I would expect all software probes to always upgrade themselves,
> and this be clearly communicated to SW probe hosts.
> 
> If this violates your sysadmin policies, you shouldn't run 3rd-party
> maintained *and operated* software.
> 
> Gert Doering
>        -- NetMaster
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