Open Stack

Marco Consonni wrote:
> When I submit a bug, I would like to specify the version of the software
> I'm using.
> To me, this would be very useful in particular for the person who's
> going to fix it because s/he can reject the bug (giving indications why)
> if it has already fixed in the latest version.
> In my opinion, this is so useful that you, as a reporter, should be
> obliged to specify this piece of information in the bug submission form.
> I don't know if this can be easily implemented with launchpad, but a
> drop-down list with all the versions would be very handy.
> [...]

On Launchpad itself, the only customization possible are the specific
guidelines for reporting a bug. For example for Nova it says:

"Please include the exact version of Nova with which you're experiencing
this issue."

We could recommend that people run a diagnostics tool that would collect
some information about their setup, and attach that to the bug. It could
start simply as a tool that reports the version of the software, and
then evolve to describe a bit more: origin of the install (devstack,
Ubuntu package version...), or maybe config/ topology information.

The trick is to avoid crossing the line and gathering too much
information, which would discourage the reporter from submitting the
information in the open.

> And this opens another (possible) issue: how can I easily retrieve the
> version I'm using?
> 
> At the moment I just found this description
> http://ken.pepple.info/openstack/2011/04/30/openstack-nova-version/
> that, as far as I understand, is valid for Nova, only.
> Maybe a good starting point but not sufficient.
> The best would be a sort "unified method" for retrieving any component's
> version; maybe a CLI that sounds as follows:
> 
> $ os-version <component>
> 
> that returns the version of component (nova, swift, etc...). BTW os -in
> the command- stands for OpenStack.
> Going a little further, a tool retrieving all the configuration details,
> could be useful.
> 
> I understand that the implementation of tools has several design
> implications and, probably, does not solve the problem for the versions
> produced so far.

That's a good point...

> A (maybe) easier solution could be to provide the submitter with
> information for retrieving the latest module version.
> The way for retrieving the version can depend on the module (for Nova
> it's the method described in the link I reported; for Swift it's a
> different method I don't know, etc...)
> Ideally, this information should be reported in the form you use for
> submitting bugs so that people don't have to crawl Internet for
> discovering and are, therefore, are encouraged to provide.

This sounds like the very minimum. A wiki page describing how to
retrieve version numbers and other interesting information (origin of
the install). Care to start writing one ?

> Again, this is possible if you can "configure" launchpad for this purpose.

If we do a wiki page, we can point to it from the Launchpad bug
submission guidelines.

-- 
Thierry Carrez (ttx)
Release Manager, OpenStack