Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 1545001
Document the addition of the '-y' flag to the katello-backup command
Last modified: 2018-08-31 11:19 EDT
Red Hat Satellite 6.2.14 introduced a '-y' flag to the katello-backup command that changed the default behaviour. Now, users must supply this flag when running an off-line backup to ensure services are stopped when the backup is created. The following section of the 6.2 Server Administration Guide must be updated to reflect the new behaviour - https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-us/red_hat_satellite/6.2/html/server_administration_guide/chap-red_hat_satellite-server_administration_guide-backup_and_disaster_recovery
Assigning to Russell for review. Russell - we'll tackle these changes in the 6.2 version to start with given that this is where the greatest need is right now. When the 6.3 version has been fully converted to AsciiDoc, we can look to making the changes there as well, perhaps under a separate bug.
The question should be avoided when the scripts runs non interactive. Currently, non interactive and offline mode, the script assumes "no" and continues. Consequently, the backup is performed with the services still running, leading to backups guaranteed to being corrupt, without feedback to the user. It took us 2 weeks and an analysis of the backup code until we discovered we had nothing but useless backups. The script MUST either cancel and return an error code, or unconditionally stop the services if in offline mode, assuming that the selection of the offline mode implicates services stopped; IMHO using offline mode implicates stopping the services. Please check how the currently broken script will be fixed before documenting. Btw. the flag was introduced with 6.2.13
> The question should be avoided when the scripts runs non interactive. > Currently, non interactive and offline mode, the script assumes "no" and > continues. To make sure I understand, you are running the script with -y but not using --online-backup flag, and the script keeps the services running? If this is the case, we definitely need to file a bug around this. What version of satellite?
No, with "-y" it behaves as designed. But doing offline backups in a non interactive script environment without the "-y" flag (which was the default up to 6.2.12) must either stop the services or return an error code. Not continue silently with the worst decicion: doing backup while the services are running. Customer scripts migrating from 6.2.12 do not set a "-y" flag. I'm in touch with David Caplan about this issue, because two modifications introduced with 6.2.13 had disastrous effects on backup script implementations. I'm sure there are Satellite customer still running backup scripts which produces corrupt backups every day, unnoticed, because of the dangerous act of introducing this new flag. I just want to make sure that the documentation takes into account upcoming changes.