Peru Upgrade process.

[John Watlington]

On Jun 7, 2008, at 1:16 AM, C. Scott Ananian wrote:

> On Fri, Jun 6, 2008 at 11:32 PM, Martin Langhoff  
> <martin at laptop.org> wrote:
>> As Wad discussed today, the new upgrade process is a step backwards
>> from what we had before. Specifically, it will wipe activation keys
>> and homedirs.
>>
>> I am not sure how important people @ 1CC find this to be, but it's a
>> pretty awkward thing when contemplating on-the-field upgrades. And I
>> have no idea how feasible it to add that back.
>>
>> What Wad had prepared was a usb stick with an rpm, an image file  
>> and a
>> shellscript that - when executed - would install the olpc-upgrade
>> (update?) rpm and execute it pointing to the image file. We did  
>> notget
>> a chance to test it, as plans changed and we ended up going to
>> Arahuay, where XOs were mostly up-to-date.

> I'm not sure where this "new upgrade process" stuff is coming from.
> If by "new upgrade process" we're talking about olpc-update, then it
> certainly does preserve activation and home dirs.  If "new upgrade
> process" means secure reflash: it is specifically meant for clean
> "factory fresh" installs only.  If you're trying to preserve user
> homedirs, then that's not what you want to be using.  (And how "new"
> is this, anyway?)

This ties back to why we ship machines to G1G1 without developer keys.
It isn't new, but I hadn't been paying attention as I always have  
developer
keys in order to run the newest builds.   And, for the sake of  
repeatable
testing of hardware or networking, I usually reflash instead of  
upgrading.

> Talking to wad over IRC, what he seemed to really be saying was that
> there wasn't a "no keystrokes required" way to use olpc-update on a
> classroom full of machines *without involving a school server*.  And I
> will admit that that wasn't a use case I ever had in mind, for a
> variety of reasons.

Look, the reality on the ground is that Peru has at least 15K laptops in
the field running 651/653/656 that need upgrading.    They will not have
school servers deployed for another three months.    If upgrade
(not reflash) requires more than inserting a key, or it wipes the
activation lease/the kids work, this won't happen.

This wasn't in my plans either.   But reality has a way of  
intervening itself.

> As you mention, there are a number of "minimal keystroke" methods of
> upgrading a classroom full of machines, with the most direct being to
> put a small script on a USB key that can be invoked from console or
> terminal to run through the steps.  The initial "upgrade olpc-update
> from an RPM" step in that script won't be necessary going from 703.

> The intent was to do field upgrades primarily over the network from a
> school server.  Is that no longer the plan of record?

That is still the recommended method (although I would believe this more
if someone had packaged the update service for the school server), but
that plan needs to also include a simple (no typing) method to upgrade
(not reflash) a laptop from a USB key.
I don't know when that requirement got lost from the "plan of record".

wad