draft advisory about network issues

[Martin Pool]

2009/5/7 Robert Collins <robert.collins at canonical.com>:
> This is a draft of advise we should send our users about the 1.13/1.14
> network headaches. We should send this to bazaar-announce, and forward
> copies to known large users of bzr (including hosting sites such as
> alioth, sourceforge, launchpad, and so on).

The noun is spelled 'advice' fwiw.

> -----
>
> Networking bugs in bzr 1.13/1.14
> ================================
>
> Bzr 1.13 introduced streaming fetch over the bzr:// protocol.
> Unfortunately due to design oversight dating back to bzr 1.6 this was
> not able to operate on many stacked branches due to the data in the
> stacking branch being overly minimal. The server is unable to correctly
> determine the deltas to send.

I think here I'd add a bit more about what the impact is and who it affects:

  If you're not using stacked branches this does not affect you.  [ok
this should be obvious but in this kind of thing let's overcommunicate
slighly.]  Bazaar will not create them by default unless you specify
the --stacked option or set a server-side policy for them.  This
policy is set on the Launchpad code host.  You can tell if there are
any stacked branches by the presence of a .bzr/branch/stacked-on file.
[Correct name?]

 If you are using stacked branches, then using either bzr 1.13 or 1.14
to push data into them may create repositories that cannot be read.

  [What should people do with existing affected branches.]

Add the bug URLs here too and say updates will be posted there.

> There are bug fixes that all users of stacked branches should apply:

So ahead of this I think we need to say basically what the options
are; to me they seem to be:

 * Go back to bzr 1.12 on the server

 * Don't push new stacked branches.

 * Run bzr.dev (and point to the nightly PPA)

 * Manually apply the fixes below.


>
> On the bzr server:
> Apply http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~bzr/bzr/trunk/revision/4307, as per
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/launchpad-code/+bug/354036. This will be
> included in the upcoming bzr 1.15.
> Apply http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~bzr/bzr/trunk/revision/4342, as per
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/bzr/+bug/360791. This will
> also be included in the upcoming bzr 1.15.
>
> On client machines:
> Run bzr 1.13.2 or bzr 1.14.2. Older versions of bzr will continue to
> create problematic branches that will require the fixer script in
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/launchpad-code/+bug/354036 to be run against
> them.
>
> There is another potential failure mode that may affect projects using
> bzr-svn, or migrating from GNU Arch. If you encounter a 'Revision
> REVISIONID not present' error when branching, you may be suffering
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bzr/+bug/368418. A fix for this is currently
> in progress and will be included in 1.15.
>
> For further information and support please contact the Bazaar community,
> #bzr on irc.freenode.net, or bazaar at lists.canonical.com.

  or https://answers.launchpad.net/bzr

That's good, thanks.
-- 
Martin <http://launchpad.net/~mbp/>