[OmniOS-discuss] On pkg(1) behavior in r151022

[Dan McDonald]

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:  As it stands, pkg(5) in bloody changes behavior from 014-020 to something different. It also fixes a shortcoming in 014-020. Do we go completely with the new behavior and document it? Or do we minimize least-surprise at the risk of introducing bugs? I'm leaning toward the second choice, modulo my pkg5 test suite experiences.  Opinions, esp. from LTS folks, needed.

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I updated pkg5 during this bloody to handle Python2.7.  That worked all well and good, but had a side-effect I didn't see (and neither did a lot of bloody users, apparently).

So here's what happens today, on 014-020 pkg(5) for global zone invocations:

pkg update <pkg>
- Updates <pkg> on global zone.  No others, REGARDLESS of linked-image or not.

pkg update
- Update all pkgs on global zone AND on any linked-image zones.


Starting with the Python2.7 integration, this behavior changed:

pkg update <pkg>
- Same as before

pkg update
- Only updates global zone, and linked-image "If needs sync", where "needs sync" is not well defined (may need a property inside a package itself).

pkg update -r <pkg>
- Updates <pkg> on global zone AND on linked-image zones.

pkg update -r
- Behaves like "pkg update" on 014-020, updates all pkgs on global and linked-image zones.



The "-r" as an option - and you can specify zones with -z or zones to exclude with -Z - is new from Oracle with the wad of updates OpenIndiana pulled in to get Python2.7 support.  And I quote from the pkg(1) man page you can see on bloody today:

          -r

              Run this operation in the global zone and also in all installed
              solaris branded non-global zones. The effect on the non-global
              zone is similar to logging into each non-global zone and
              running the command directly. Without this option, when you run
              pkg commands in the global zone, non-global zones are modified
              only to the extent required to keep them compatible with the
              global zone. With this option, the pkg operation is applied to
              all installed non-global zones except as limited by the -z and
              -Z options. Zones that are excluded by the -z and -Z options
              might still be modified if updates are required to keep them in
              sync with the global zone.

Because of the least-suprise violation of new "pkg update" behavior, I'm wondering if we should make "-r" implicit.  I'm working right now on an implicit "-r" solution, but am running into some problems with the pkg5 test suite I still need to sort out.

Thanks!
Dan