Hello Guix, Some services require administrator interaction when they are updated. The most prominent examples here are MySQL/MariaDB and PostgresQL.
For the former, running 'mysql_upgrade' in-place is generally sufficient and fairly safe. For the latter, the procedure is more involved, and requires making a full backup, as well as access to the old _and_ new PostgreSQL packages. There is a patch to update MariaDB here: https://issues.guix.gnu.org/43355 Users of mysql-service-type will need to run 'mysql_upgrade' afterwards. I have been considering adding an AUTO-UPGRADE? parameter of mysql-service-type that runs 'mysql_upgrade' as part of the activation script. Another approach is adding a 'herd upgrade' Shepherd action along with a news entry describing what to do. Of course it is possible to do both, having 'auto-upgrade?' _and_ a Shepherd action for manual upgrades. Thoughts? While that works for MariaDB, I'm not sure what to do about Postgres. For those unfamiliar, the procedure for upgrading from PostgreSQL 10 (current default) to 11 (available in Guix) is roughly: sudo cp -a /var/lib/postgresql/data /var/lib/postgresql/data10 sudo -u postgres $(guix build postgresql)/bin/pg_upgrade \ --old-bindir=$(guix build postgresql@10)/bin \ --new-bindir=$(guix build postgresql)/bin \ --old-datadir=/var/lib/postgresql/data10 \ --new-datadir=/var/lib/postgresql/data In order to automate it, we need to somehow preserve the "previous" version of PostgreSQL so that we can reach it when the major version changes. Or add an 'upgrade-from' parameter to postgresql-service-type. How do other distros deal with this? On a related note, a 'herd backup' action might be a prerequisite for doing such potentially dangerous operations... I will try to add a 'mysql_upgrade' pass to 'mysql-service-type' in time for the MariaDB upgrade, but tips regarding backups, potential pitfalls, and especially Postgres welcome. PS: I'm mostly busy for some time still, but can be reached on #guix or by private email if you want my feedback on something. :-)
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