[atlas] Encouraging people to upgrade software probe versions

Hello,

On 2023-01-09 10:52, Gert Doering 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.

That is indeed true for hardware probes - the host has little influence 
on the firmware upgrade. It is intended to be plug and play. It is also 
true for anchors.

> So I would expect all software probes to always upgrade themselves,
> and this be clearly communicated to SW probe hosts.

That is reasonable; the difference is that we are not in control; the 
host OS is. Redhat/Fedora/derivatives as well as Debian/derivatives have 
an official solution to this via their package management services and I 
believe this is the standard way (surely with exceptions :-) ) of 
handling these matters. We are in the process of adopting these.

> If this violates your sysadmin policies, you shouldn't run 3rd-party
> maintained *and operated* software.

The intention here is to do less special handling, and conform more to 
the operational practices. The case is entirely solvable using those, 
and this direction is expected to make deployment and maintenance easier 
on hosts (as well as the Atlas team) in the long run.

I hope this explains the motivation,
Robert


> Gert Doering
>          -- NetMaster