[clamav-users] Debian packaging

[Dennis Peterson]

On 2/12/14, 6:29 AM, Andrew Kelly wrote:
> On Tue, 2014-02-11 at 21:28 -0800, Dennis Peterson wrote:
>> On 2/11/14, 8:06 AM, Andrew Kelly wrote:
>>
>>> So..... <bump!>
>
>> So..... Andy - You do know that this is the wrong list for complaints about
>> Debian support, right? You might have better luck here:
>
>
> Thanks for the guidance, Dennis, much appreciated.
>
> I'm curious, though... I've seen half a dozen or more threads
> in the last few weeks that have precious little to do with
> the core business of this list. Why is it that you picked my
> mail (very much on topic in an existent thread, by the way)
> to play hall monitor?
> Is it just because you're seeing my name for the first time,
> or have you just not been reading everything posted to this
> list?
>
> At any rate, I'm running a farm of "stable" and "old-stable"
> deployments, the dep nightmare of pulling something from testing
> isn't really going to serve my customer base very well. And
> the 20 minutes.. well, were it that painless I'm sure half a
> dozen daily readers of this list would have already back-ported
> things months and months ago.
>
> Hope I haven't upset you, that's really not what I intended,
> and as I said, I'm quite grateful for your response.
>
> Andy
>

I'm not upset - I'm retired. Time is important to me because there's just not as 
much left as there once was. In fact there never was, so I do what I can to 
manage time better. That means I don't wait for support people to do for me what 
I can do for myself. I've always built ClamAV from source in every environment 
I've installed it. Sometimes that is just "configure;make;make install", 
sometimes it is by editing a spec file and building the RPM.

When I'm done it is fully integrated with my OS versions, file system layout, 
mailer, milters, logger, log rotator, startup scripts, and password/group files. 
It is a reliable and repeatable process.

Educating, or informing you is not at all the same thing as picking on you. I've 
not picked on you at all, of course. I may not have educated you, either, but 
not from a lack of trying. In the case of the Debian package availability I'm 
helping you save time. Nobody here is responsible for Debian packages. ClamAV is 
a Cisco company. Debian is an SPI company. They can help you or at least inform 
you regarding deployment schedules. Anything you get here is going to be second 
hand.

Secondly, by advising you that you, yes you, can build these packages to get you 
through a crisis is good advice. I'll get to what is a crisis shortly. Here's 
the page you need to see to build Debian packages - read the first section 
carefully: http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/maint-guide/index.en.html

Here's a piece of it:

------------------------------
1.1. Social dynamics of Debian

Here are some observations of Debian's social dynamics, presented in the hope 
that it will prepare you for interactions with Debian.

     We all are volunteers.
         You cannot impose on others what to do.
         You should be motivated to do things by yourself.
-------------------------------

You inherit that when you choose Debian. So why would you want to have this 
skill? Because sometimes there is a crisis and you should be able to deal with 
it in a timely, disciplined manner. I will tell you though that the change from 
9.8 to 9.8.1 is definitely not a crisis and it is hoped that some sense of 
perspective will be imparted. That being there's no hurry. Read the Changelog 
before going into crisis mode. If there really is a crisis it is your 
responsibility to manage it. The volunteers will likely up the priority to get 
the build ready because they likely are also customers. But never forget they 
are volunteers and are not responsible for solving your crisis.

More links:
http://packages.debian.org/stable/clamav
   This will show you who your volunteers are and even how to get in touch with 
them.

http://packages.debian.org/stable/allpackages
   This is the list of stable packages you can use today

http://www.debian.org/distrib/packages
   This is the top of the package tree where you can find everything you need to 
know about Debian packages.

dp - Unix wonk since 1980