Who was the mental genius

[Paul Schmehl]

--On June 7, 2014 at 1:32:08 PM +0200 Michelle Sullivan 
<michelle at sorbs.net> wrote:

> Paul Schmehl wrote:
>>
>> I appreciate the advice.  I've elected to setup an alternate form of
>> backup (using rsync over ssh to backup each server to its sibling) so
>> I can upgrade to 8.4 without worrying about a loss.  Once that's
>> complete, I'll get the new backup system in place (using Storgrid
>> backing up to a SAN at the hosting provider).
>>
>> After that I can comfortably move to 9 or 10.  I don't like running
>> "bleeding edge" releases on production servers.  This work I'm doing
>> is entirely voluntary, for a hobby website with a small budget, so I
>> have to be very careful about not breaking anything.
>>
>> When I installed one of these servers 9 wouldn't even install (missing
>> RAID drivers), which is why I used 8.
>>
> My issue is some of the production servers I am running if I perform an
> 'OS Reload' Softlayer (the hosting provider) will only allow me to
> reload with 7.x releases...  totally unsupported.  Others only 7.2 or
> 8.4, others 8.4, 9.0 or 10.0...  So last production reload I did after
> freebsd-update screwed up (and it was probably user error (or distro
> error - Softlayer's setup) not a problem with freebsd-update - going
> from 7.2->8.4) I had to reload with 9.0 and freebsd-update to 9.2 (10.0
> was not even an option on that server - just 2 months ago)
>
> FreeBSD maintainer problem?  No
> User (me) problem? No and Yes (no because I didn't do anything, yes
> because a production server went down)
> Softlayer problem?  Probably - but then they give you 20+ OS options
> mostly Windows and (paid support) $penguin OSs ... FreeBSD seems not a
> priority for them (and they don't have any other *BSDs) so can you blame
> them? (probably getting kickbacks for the support contracts)
>
> There isn't an easy answer, everyone is trying to do the right thing,
> but I feel your pain (mentioned elsewhere in this thread.)
>

Thank you, Michelle.  I think you've hit on one of the crucial elements of 
this problem.

For example; after realizing that I had to upgrade, I had to scramble to 
setup a temporary backup solution before I could upgrade.  (My original 
problem was that my backup system failed, and I needed to devise an 
alternate solution.  After some discussion with the owners, it was decided 
to pay for a backup solution from the hosting provider, because that will 
give us the best long term stability.)

So, I setup a temporary backup, then upgraded to 8.4.  AFTER doing that, 
Baptiste responded and, among other things, revealed that 8.4 wouldn't be 
good enough.  So now I have to upgrade yet again.

Right now both systems are at 8.4, but the critical system (the website) is 
still not "fixed".  I ran portmaster -ad to update all the ports and, as 
usual, ran into problems.  I'm currently working through those problems, 
but it will take a while.  And that is the point, for me.  I have been 
thrust into a situation where, when I had other plans for the weekend - 
involving my grandchildren - I now have to devote time to get this system 
back into working condition BEFORE I do it all over again (moving to 9. - I 
don't dare go to 10. yet on a production system.)

If something breaks in a bad way, then I have to get in my car, drive over 
to the hosting site and stay there until it's fixed.

Yes, if this was my job, that would be expected.  But it's not.  This is 
volunteer work that I do on my own time without compensation.  So it might 
be understandable that I got a little pissed off and reacted with anger 
when things broke so unexpectedly and without notice.

I've searched.  There's no notice in UPDATING.  There was no announcement 
on the ports list.  I found NOTHING to warn me of this problem except other 
people complaining of the same problem.  8.4 went EOL in September 2012. 
This problem was introduced with a patch committed on May 5, 2014.  So the 
smart asses who ridiculed me about using an out of date system don't even 
know what they're talking about.

Yet some pompous jerks on this list want to accuse me of incompetence, 
laziness or dereliction without even knowing the circumstances of the 
problem.  Most of them assumed this was my job and I had fallen down on it. 
Not one of them tried to address the actual issue.  They were more 
interested in ridiculing me.  Not that I care.  But that kind of attitude 
and behavior will drive some people away from FreeBSD.  (And yes, I'm 
deliberately poking them in the eye, and they know who they are.)

I appreciate people like you and others who have read through the thread, 
overlooked the anger and zeroed in on the issue.  I especially appreciate 
you making others aware of the many complex issues that some of us have to 
deal with that they don't seem to think about before making major changes 
that break things.

I'm not pointing fingers.  I'm just saying, hey, this blew up in a big way. 
How about some advance warning next time?  Without that, FreeBSD won't 
survive.  Arnold is correct.  I love FreeBSD.  I've used it for more than 
10 years.  I hate to see it fall apart because the customer service part of 
the equation gets short shrift in the developers' enthusiasm to do things 
in a better way.

There was a time when a problem like this would have caused me to panic and 
change OSes.  I have no doubt that there are others, newer to FreeBSD than 
I am, who would do just that after such an event.

Paul Schmehl, Senior Infosec Analyst
As if it wasn't already obvious, my opinions
are my own and not those of my employer.
*******************************************
"It is as useless to argue with those who have
renounced the use of reason as to administer
medication to the dead." Thomas Jefferson
"There are some ideas so wrong that only a very
intelligent person could believe in them." George Orwell