UnrealIRCD 3.2-RC2fix released

Horizon · Posted: Mar 09, 2004 10:41am Post subject: UnrealIRCD 3.2-RC2fix released

irc-junkie

Pierce · none Joined: 09 Feb 2004 Posts: 47

yeah it can, i like watching my uptime slowly creap up, but updating to RC2 then finding out all 4 servers have to be redone is anoying.

unreal should take there time, about 3 months ish to the next RC or even if its time a final. i think people could live with an update every 6 months, to be fair, and let the unreal team do some good testing, and then only update if a major bug occours that instantly needs a patch. and a big realease on the 6th month.

but i do find it encouraging to see, that they are working on it, unlike auspics which is lacking an update sence september 2003 with major bugs. thus i had to switch to anope for the network to grow as auspices dying after 14days of uptime was unaceptable.

UnrealIrcd is good, and i like the way they are always viewably active, but it would be nice if they slowed down the releases, to 1 every 6months

Pierce

codemastr · Idler Joined: 05 Feb 2004 Posts: 353

Horizon, would you have prefered we just left the bug there and allowed it to affect people's servers? Would it have been better to have people's server's broken so they didn't have to upgrade again? I don't think so.

Secondly, I think you need to reevaluate the concept of a release candidate. There is _not_ supposed to be months in between RC releases. Some programs release a new RC every other day! That is what an RC is, it irons out the final problems, so when you find new problems, you release a new RC. We don't want to release a stable version with known bugs in it. And how do you get people to test the bugfixes? You release a new version. That's what happened with RC2 and RC2fix. Right after we released, a bug was found. Therefore, we took the proper steps to correct the problem and to minimize the damage caused. You make it sound as though thousands of people had to reinstall, that's not the case, based on our statistics, at the time, about 87 downloads had been made. Of which, 30 were Windows (which means no recompiling, no patching, just restarting). And, out of those 87, many of them had not even actually installed it yet. We estimate this affected about 50 servers. Is that bad? Of course, but it is no wheres near the level you suggest.

Furthermore, don't make like Unreal is the only project to ever have problems right after a release. When Microsoft released Windows XP there were bug reports flooding in within the first hour. Of course testing is done, we tested Unreal rigorously, but sometimes bugs just slip passed and it takes mass use to discover them.

Secondly, with the exception of Pierce, I haven't had anyone complain to me. Instead I had people thanking us for solving the problem as quickly as possible so that the effects were minimized.

But again, I always go back to what I've said numerous times before. No one is forcing you to run Unreal. If you don't like Unreal, and you like something else, then please, go use something else. But, the fact that people who did upgrade to RC2 and then decided to install RC2fix tells you something, no one likes bugs, but people aren't going to let one bug stop them from using a program they like. We work on Unreal on a daily basis, not a day goes by where we aren't working on something. I don't know of any IRCds where that is true. I remember a time when I reported a serious bug in Bahamut to the coders. The bug allowed any user to get the IPs of any oper (even if the IP was masked) and the IPs of every server (including the hubs and services). They fixed the problem almost immediately in their CVS version, but it was at least a week until the fix went public with a new release. So, that means people could have been using this problem to get "hidden" IPs for a week before the Bahamut team did something about it. We could have done the same thing with RC2, just hoped no one else would ever notice it and pretend it never happened until word got out. But instead, we decided we should do our best to protect our users' networks and get a fix out immediately. And that's exactly what we did.

If you don't like our decision, that's perfectly fine, you are entitled to your opinion. If you don't like Unreal, again, it's fine, you are entitled to hate Unreal. But, many people do like Unreal and we are going to do the best that we can to ensure that our users get the best service we can provide.

Horizon · Posted: Mar 09, 2004 12:37pm Post subject:

how about simply testing the code in a more extensive fassion before it's released Wink

I agree thats it's good to stay on top of bugs.. But I also feel that it's a developers responsability to stick to releasing a stable version to newer stable version.. not Stable version --- > unstable ----> stable fixed. See where i'm going with this?

This statement goes for any opensource / closed source software, For example bahamut just did the same thing a short while ago also. Thankfully i wasnt running the latest and greatest version. But it's a version with no holes or modes gone wonky.

I realize that beta versions or RC versions of anything are not considered stable. But i've noticed a tendancy of server admins no matter what daemon they run to go install the latest update. I suppose what it all comes down to is good admining. Dont run ANYTHING in beta or RC if you expect it to be software used for production purposes.

Horizon · Posted: Mar 09, 2004 12:52pm Post subject:

By the way.. How long has Unreal been in beta for? I dont mean this in a scarcastic fassion. Just curious.

Ib3N · Guest

me thinks unreal is great, but after the major change in modes on Beta19, services have a hard time supporting it.. Neutral

Pierce · none Joined: 09 Feb 2004 Posts: 47

by no means was my post of saying having to redo all 4 servers a complaint, i would rather have to redo the servers than have a bug. i said it was anoying, but this is life, and these things happen. I love unreal, and i will always use it,

Pierce

codemastr · Idler Joined: 05 Feb 2004 Posts: 353

Horizon,

It was in beta for well over a year, I'd have to go searching to find out a more precise time.

Ib3N,

Umm what are you referring to? As far as I can recall, only 1 new mode was added in beta19.

typobox43 · none Joined: 12 Feb 2004 Posts: 8

I think that what Ib3N is referring to is the redesign of +f in the new versions of Unreal. I don't think ircservices knows how to process this - especially with chanserv modelocks, for example. At least, that's what I've been told. Smile

typobox43
IRC Operator - irc.chatspike.net

Ib3N · Lurker Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 157 Location: ChatSpike

yes. typo's right. :p

Ib3N
IRCop, ChatSpike

codemastr · Idler Joined: 05 Feb 2004 Posts: 353

Ah ok, well I've already talked to Andy Church (The author of IRCServices) and he said he has been working on this. I'd say, expect to see support for this in the next version of IRCServices. Also, not sure if it needs special support, but I'll talk to one of the Anope authors tomorrow to see if he can get everything working there. Other than that, are there any other services people use with Unreal?

Ib3N · Lurker Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 157 Location: ChatSpike

yes, but they're pretty crap, or so I hear.. problems with buffer overflows

IRCop, ChatSpike

acidrain · none Joined: 09 Mar 2004 Posts: 9

Yeah beta's and rc's aren't meant to be stable, i only went from 3.1.6 to 3.2 when beta 17 came out, i figured it was stable enough by then, and I appreciate unreal releasing bug fixes as fast as they can.
Btw Unreal rocks :)
I installed debian back when i was 12, my bro got me into linux, and got unreal shortly after, i find its the ircd with the most features that is stable, your a good coder, and have a good team. thx to you all :)

btw for those of you wondering, i'm 17 now :)

and no i haven't upgraded to rc2 yet but i do my upgrades on weekends when the other admins are on :)

anyway we appreciate you codemastr

- irc.darkircers.org
- irc.star-fury.com

tiko · none Joined: 24 Sep 2003 Posts: 49

Server Up 98 days, 21:20:32, beta19. Two out of three client servers with 98+ days.
Services up 15 days. Using a ripped up version of Epona's latest release.

Short and sweet, just how I like it. When 3.2 hits final, I'll upgrade, unless a major exploit is found in beta19.

Edit: previous services uptime was 72 days Wink

Ib3N · Lurker Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 157 Location: ChatSpike