Package: cfengine2
Version: 2.2.8-1
Consider the following cfagent.conf:
---------------------------------------------------
control:
actionsequence = (
copy
)
Inform = ( on )
copy:
any:: /home/toomas/sample dest=/tmp/sample-dest
----------------------------------------------------
If the file "/home/toomas/sample" does not exist, under etch, cfengine2
would report:
Can't stat /home/toomas/sample in copy
while under lenny, it silently ignores the missing file. In a simple
copy operation like this I expect to be told if my source file is
missing.
Reading on the internet and checking the sources (do.c line 2576 and
following), the message is now only reported in verbose mode. Apparently
some users saw spurious "Can't stat" messages which they considered
annoying and decided that such messages should be silenced. The patch is
possibly the one posted at
https://cfengine.org/pipermail/help-cfengine/2007-February/000916.html
By doing so, they also silenced important diagnostics which are very
useful in debugging cfagent configuration files. In real life the
cfagent.conf files are hundreds of lines long and occasional typos in
file names do occur. Previously, such errors were immediately reported.
Now I would need to run cfagent in verbose mode, which, with real-life
inputs, creates hundreds of lines of output. Since the message is buried
among the verbose diagnostics, I need to grep the file for specific
error messages. With dozens of hosts one just cannot keep doing this all
the time. That is the reason for error messages in the first place. A
missing source file is clearly an error.
I think that the patch sould be reversed and the users who are annoyed
by these messages could remove them with "grep" themselves. In the long
run, a separate flag should be introduced for suppressing just these
particular messages if they cause trouble for some people while being
useful for others.
--
Toomas Tamm e-mail: tt-deb (at) kky.ttu.ee
Chair of Inorganic Chemistry voice: INT+372-620-2810
Tallinn University of Technology fax: INT+372-620-2828
Ehitajate tee 5, EE-19086 Tallinn, Estonia http://www.kk.ttu.ee/toomas/
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