[Bug 423856] Re: [FFE] ec2-init should check for image upgrades

Dustin Kirkland dustin.kirkland at gmail.com
Fri Sep 4 16:15:48 UTC 2009


It should *not* send any user- or system-specific data.  I will be
opposed to any utility that does this without user consent.

The ec2-upgrade-available utility will:

 1) Source /etc/ubuntu-image (if it exists) to obtain a URI.
  * Admins who want to disable this feature would simply remove this file.
  * Alternatively, admins could set this URI to a different or locally mirrored URI, if they desire.

 2) Use curl to retrieve $URI, and cache it locally in /var/run/ec2
-upgrade-available, which is cleared on reboot

 3) URI would look something like:
URI=http://imagestore.canonical.com/api/images/ubuntu-9.10-amd64

 4) On login, if /var/run/ec2-upgrade-available exists, pam_motd will
insert friendly, helpful text toward the bottom of the system MOTD (same
as updates-available, release-upgrade, reboot-required on all other
Ubuntu installations)

 5) The URI would be pulled once at system boot (in the background), and
then every 24 hours, by a cronjob dynamically created at boot, to
randomize the load on targeted servers.

I believe that this design provides a system that allows both EC2 and UEC users of Ubuntu images to be informed of updates in a manner that:
 * does not impact system boot (the first retrieval occurs in the background)
 * does not impact overall system performance (24 hour caching cronjob seems reasonable)
 * does not impact login (only prints cached message)
 * mimics the design of apt-get-update retrieval of security notifications, and update-motd notification of such information
 * can be disabled by removing /etc/ubuntu-image
 * can be customized to point to a different URI

Are there still any objections?

:-Dustin

-- 
[FFE] ec2-init should check for image upgrades
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/423856
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