apache2 package and continued Certbot compatibility

[Robie Basak]

Hi,

Thank you for getting in touch.

I'm not sure that our test infrastructure currently allows for emails to
be sent to third parties on failure, but in any case I'm sure you don't
want to be spammed by test failures a majority of which won't be certbot
related.

One thing I suggest you can do is to write a test suite covering all the
functionality on which you're relying (thank you for summarising that)
and add the test suite to our packaging, with a note in the failure
output to get in touch with you about behaviour changes.

Our tests will then run for every change we make to the apache2 package,
and will block pending review from a distribution developer. That person
will hopefully see your note and get in touch with you well in advance
of it causing a problem for users in production.

The tool to do all of this is "autopkgtest" which is packaged in Debian
and Ubuntu. The documentation is here:
https://salsa.debian.org/ci-team/autopkgtest/raw/master/doc/README.package-tests.rst

Note that Ubuntu's apache2 packaging is derived from Debian's, and that
everything I've said above applies to Debian also, so it might be easier
to make these test additions in Debian directly, if they are willing to
accept them.

Hope that helps,

Robie

On Thu, May 16, 2019 at 05:02:59PM +0300, Joona Hoikkala wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> The following message is intended for the maintainers of the apache2
> package:
> 
> We’re maintaining Certbot and it’s Apache plugin on Ubuntu. In the past,
> changes to the Apache HTTPd package on different OSes have broken the
> way Certbot interacts with web server. We are contacting to let you know
> what functionality we are relying on to see if we can find a way to
> ensure uninterrupted operability of Certbot on Ubuntu. We would also
> love to hear your thoughts about the way we’re currently doing this -
> especially if you think there would be a better practice to do some or
> all of these actions on Ubuntu.
> 
> If possible, we would also like to get notified if some of the
> functionality of these interaction points that we depend on changes, so
> we can adapt our code before the functionality breaks for the users.
> 
> If your distribution’s packaging infrastructure allows tests that could
> send notifications over to us, it would be a great thing to have. That
> said, we definitely do not want to block your development or maintenance
> of Apache HTTPd on Ubuntu, but would merely like to keep our software
> compatible with upstream changes.
> 
> The integration points:
> 
> Configuration structure root: /etc/apache2
> Logs directory (used when creating a new VirtualHost for redirects):
> /var/log/apache2
> 
> 
> Apache calls:
> 
> Version check: apache2ctl -v
> Restart: apache2ctl graceful
> Config test: apache2ctl configtest
> List loaded modules: apache2ctl -t -D DUMP_MODULES
> List Define’d variables: apache2ctl -t -D DUMP_RUN_CFG
> List Include’d configuration files: apache2ctl -t -D DUMP_INCLUDES
> 
> We’re also calling a2enmod and and a2dismod scripts to enable / disable
> modules (like mod_ssl) if needed.
> 
> --
> Joona Hoikkala
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list
> Ubuntu-devel-discuss at lists.ubuntu.com
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