Need advice from maintainers

[Bill Moran]

In response to Paul Schmehl <pschmehl_lists at tx.rr.com>:

> --On Wednesday, October 21, 2009 10:31:21 -0500 Bill Moran 
> <wmoran at potentialtech.com> wrote:
> 
> >
> > In response to Paul Schmehl <pschmehl_lists at tx.rr.com>:
> >
> >> I am the maintainer for security/barnyard2.  This is an updated version of
> >> security/barnyard, which I also maintain.  The version of my port is the
> >> current release version, but it has a really irritating problem that is fixed
> >> in the current beta version.
> >>
> >> Barnyard2 is a program that parses snort logs and inserts them into a
> >> database (mysql or postgresql).  It is supposed to create a placemarker file
> >> (called a waldo file) that maintains a record of what logs it has already
> >> parsed.  (This is only one way of using the program.  There are others as
> >> well.)  The problem in the release version is that it does not read the
> >> waldo file when the program is restarted.  So every time you restart
> >> barnyard2, it reinserts into the database every alert you still have log
> >> files for.  The beta version fixes this problem.
> >>
> >> I have created a port for the beta version and am using it myself, but I know
> >> that using beta versions of software is frowned upon.  Should I go ahead and
> >> submit this port because it solves this problem?
> >>
> >> If I do, my thinking is that I should adjust the pkg-message file in the
> >> existing port to warn the user about the problem and note that the beta
> >> version solves it so they might want to consider using that instead.
> >
> > An option that you did not mention is to take the patch that fixes that
> > single problem and include as a patch file for barnyard2.  That way it's
> > not a true beta, it just has that single patch to fix a known problem.
> >
> > For me, I think that would be the preferred method in this case.
> >
> 
> I *might* be able to do that, if I can figure out where in the code the problem 
> is fixed.  I've had two semesters of C++, but I am not a programmer and 
> consider myself the rankest of novices wrt code.

In a perfect world. you wouldn't have to be a C++ coder.  In theory, you
should be able to look at their SVN/CVS/git/whatever repository and find
the commit that says it's fixed this problem, then just generate a diff
between that version and the release version.

Of course, that's in a perfect world.  I'm not familiar with that project,
so I don't know if they're that organized or not.

-- 
Bill Moran
http://www.potentialtech.com
http://people.collaborativefusion.com/~wmoran/