Nut upsdev - Mar 2025 - NUT testing for v2.8.3 (hopefully imminent)

Hello all,

  It has been too long that I was feeling a release is just around the
corner, just gotta tie up a few loose ends. The significant ones we had are
finally tied, some others delayed to v2.8.4 trail, and a documentation
refresh remains. Thanks to some package maintainers taking a look at the
master branch, some issues with "dist" archive creation and parallel
builds
were also located and addressed.

  So, it is that time of the year again, folks, when flowers bloom and code
gets ripe for picking a new release snapshot -- so everybody is welcome to
give it a round during the weekend. After too many hopeful deadlines
missed, I hope to at least not exceed a year since the last release
snapshot :)

  As usual,
https://github.com/networkupstools/nut/wiki/Building-NUT-for-in%E2%80%90place-upgrades-or-non%E2%80%90disruptive-tests
(and the build prerequisites linked from there as
https://networkupstools.org/docs/user-manual.chunked/_build_prerequisites_to_make_nut_from_scratch_on_various_operating_systems.html)
should help you get started.

Hoping for good news and no blocker issues,
Jim Klimov

PS: One known problem remains with the recently introduced apc_modbus
driver and/or the libmodbus (core or our fork with rtu_usb branch) - that
the USB connections tend to fall apart, as tracked at
https://github.com/networkupstools/nut/issues/2609 and others linked from
it - for now I've exhausted the hardware-less ideas and the time I had;
help is welcome.
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About that documentation refresh... as the new news entry on nut-website
goes:

Are you wondering how NUT Quality Assurance and Build Automation
<https://networkupstools.org/docs/qa-guide.chunked/index.html> happens?
Perhaps you want to do similar feats in your project? Well, now I can say
"I wrote a book on that!" :)

A few chapters were moved from Developer Guide and User Manual into a new
NUT QA&BA Guide, more existing README's in various subdirectories were
included as chapters about those tools, and new ones were written to detail
the NUT CI farm and lessons learned from moving its core from Fosshost to
DigitalOcean's sponsored VMs.

 You can now see automated renders of the document at the nut-website:

   - https://networkupstools.org/docs/qa-guide.pdf
   - https://networkupstools.org/docs/qa-guide.chunked/index.html


If you run a project that might benefit from our experience, or seeks ideas
what else/how else to test it, and especially if like NUT it is a massively
multiplatform endeavour where you need to juggle significantly different
generations of OSes/toolkits/languages -- feel free to be inspired :)

Hope this helps,
Jim Klimov


On Fri, Mar 28, 2025, 10:27 Jim Klimov <jimklimov+nut at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello all,
>
>   It has been too long that I was feeling a release is just around the
> corner, just gotta tie up a few loose ends. The significant ones we had are
> finally tied, some others delayed to v2.8.4 trail, and a documentation
> refresh remains. Thanks to some package maintainers taking a look at the
> master branch, some issues with "dist" archive creation and
parallel builds
> were also located and addressed.
>
>   So, it is that time of the year again, folks, when flowers bloom and
> code gets ripe for picking a new release snapshot -- so everybody is
> welcome to give it a round during the weekend. After too many hopeful
> deadlines missed, I hope to at least not exceed a year since the last
> release snapshot :)
>
>   As usual,
>
https://github.com/networkupstools/nut/wiki/Building-NUT-for-in%E2%80%90place-upgrades-or-non%E2%80%90disruptive-tests
> (and the build prerequisites linked from there as
>
https://networkupstools.org/docs/user-manual.chunked/_build_prerequisites_to_make_nut_from_scratch_on_various_operating_systems.html)
> should help you get started.
>
> Hoping for good news and no blocker issues,
> Jim Klimov
>
> PS: One known problem remains with the recently introduced apc_modbus
> driver and/or the libmodbus (core or our fork with rtu_usb branch) - that
> the USB connections tend to fall apart, as tracked at
> https://github.com/networkupstools/nut/issues/2609 and others linked from
> it - for now I've exhausted the hardware-less ideas and the time I had;
> help is welcome.
>
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So... April 1st came and went, busy with last-minute warnings from a newly
set-up NetBSD build agent for the NUT CI farm, as Greg-inspired warnings
exposed by the stricter platform kept popping up and biting.  Led to some
discoveries in toolkits and standards I thought I knew for decades, too. So
it was a tad bit annoying, but good overall :)

But now we are a day over the hopeful "not more than a year" since the
last
release... Still, maybe sometime later in the week all CI stars will
converge to let the release be cut.

Has any other platform got last-minute changes to tackle? Plan 9 maybe? :)

Jim Klimov

PS: Colleagues from another community pointed to
https://tailscale.com/blog/tailscale-enterprise-plan-9-support - fun read,
true story, true PRs; their request
https://github.com/tailscale/tailscale/issues/5794 posted some 3 years ago
got fulfilled just now.


On Fri, Mar 28, 2025 at 10:27?AM Jim Klimov <jimklimov+nut at gmail.com>
wrote:
> Hello all,
>
>   It has been too long that I was feeling a release is just around the
> corner, just gotta tie up a few loose ends. The significant ones we had are
> finally tied, some others delayed to v2.8.4 trail, and a documentation
> refresh remains. Thanks to some package maintainers taking a look at the
> master branch, some issues with "dist" archive creation and
parallel builds
> were also located and addressed.
>
>   So, it is that time of the year again, folks, when flowers bloom and
> code gets ripe for picking a new release snapshot -- so everybody is
> welcome to give it a round during the weekend. After too many hopeful
> deadlines missed, I hope to at least not exceed a year since the last
> release snapshot :)
>
>   As usual,
>
https://github.com/networkupstools/nut/wiki/Building-NUT-for-in%E2%80%90place-upgrades-or-non%E2%80%90disruptive-tests
> (and the build prerequisites linked from there as
>
https://networkupstools.org/docs/user-manual.chunked/_build_prerequisites_to_make_nut_from_scratch_on_various_operating_systems.html)
> should help you get started.
>
> Hoping for good news and no blocker issues,
> Jim Klimov
>
> PS: One known problem remains with the recently introduced apc_modbus
> driver and/or the libmodbus (core or our fork with rtu_usb branch) - that
> the USB connections tend to fall apart, as tracked at
> https://github.com/networkupstools/nut/issues/2609 and others linked from
> it - for now I've exhausted the hardware-less ideas and the time I had;
> help is welcome.
>
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One more PR popped up from recent discussions:
https://github.com/networkupstools/nut/pull/2899 - to address better
detection of paths involved in `./configure --enable-inplace-runtime` or
`./ci_build.sh inplace` builds, as well as to resolve some confusion in
build scripts and recipes. I hope its eventual merge would be v2.8.3-rc4
and unless some other blockers crop up - the final release as well.

So while CI is chewing it, you may try so too :)

:; git clone https://github.com/jimklimov/nut -b issue-2895 nut-issue-2895
:; cd nut-issue-2895
:; ./ci_build.sh inplace

One of the discoveries (better late than never, and certainly better before
a release than after one), regarded public library API bump, which was not
handled well in development (with new symbols, the "current" value
equivalent of "major" semantic version must be bumped). Contributions
of
some automation to track such changes better for future releases would be
great (maybe a more elaborate library script than a regex used currently?)
- no rush, but PRs would be welcome :)

Jim


On Fri, Mar 28, 2025 at 10:27?AM Jim Klimov <jimklimov+nut at gmail.com>
wrote:
> Hello all,
>
>   It has been too long that I was feeling a release is just around the
> corner, just gotta tie up a few loose ends. The significant ones we had are
> finally tied, some others delayed to v2.8.4 trail, and a documentation
> refresh remains. Thanks to some package maintainers taking a look at the
> master branch, some issues with "dist" archive creation and
parallel builds
> were also located and addressed.
>
>   So, it is that time of the year again, folks, when flowers bloom and
> code gets ripe for picking a new release snapshot -- so everybody is
> welcome to give it a round during the weekend. After too many hopeful
> deadlines missed, I hope to at least not exceed a year since the last
> release snapshot :)
>
>   As usual,
>
https://github.com/networkupstools/nut/wiki/Building-NUT-for-in%E2%80%90place-upgrades-or-non%E2%80%90disruptive-tests
> (and the build prerequisites linked from there as
>
https://networkupstools.org/docs/user-manual.chunked/_build_prerequisites_to_make_nut_from_scratch_on_various_operating_systems.html)
> should help you get started.
>
> Hoping for good news and no blocker issues,
> Jim Klimov
>
> PS: One known problem remains with the recently introduced apc_modbus
> driver and/or the libmodbus (core or our fork with rtu_usb branch) - that
> the USB connections tend to fall apart, as tracked at
> https://github.com/networkupstools/nut/issues/2609 and others linked from
> it - for now I've exhausted the hardware-less ideas and the time I had;
> help is welcome.
>
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Cheers all,

  If anyone wants to go for an Easter Bug hunt, be my guest - with
v2.8.3-rc5 pushed out.
  It was pretty quiet in the past days, with a few PRs to tie up loose ends
patiently waiting in CI and their discussions, so I really hope this one is
it, and that no small-fix commits parked in various branches were lost, and
that I would finally be able to devote time to some other technical and
social debts in different backlogs soon :)

Jim Klimov


On Fri, Mar 28, 2025 at 10:27?AM Jim Klimov <jimklimov+nut at gmail.com>
wrote:
> Hello all,
>
>   It has been too long that I was feeling a release is just around the
> corner, just gotta tie up a few loose ends. The significant ones we had are
> finally tied, some others delayed to v2.8.4 trail, and a documentation
> refresh remains. Thanks to some package maintainers taking a look at the
> master branch, some issues with "dist" archive creation and
parallel builds
> were also located and addressed.
>
>   So, it is that time of the year again, folks, when flowers bloom and
> code gets ripe for picking a new release snapshot -- so everybody is
> welcome to give it a round during the weekend. After too many hopeful
> deadlines missed, I hope to at least not exceed a year since the last
> release snapshot :)
>
>   As usual,
>
https://github.com/networkupstools/nut/wiki/Building-NUT-for-in%E2%80%90place-upgrades-or-non%E2%80%90disruptive-tests
> (and the build prerequisites linked from there as
>
https://networkupstools.org/docs/user-manual.chunked/_build_prerequisites_to_make_nut_from_scratch_on_various_operating_systems.html)
> should help you get started.
>
> Hoping for good news and no blocker issues,
> Jim Klimov
>
> PS: One known problem remains with the recently introduced apc_modbus
> driver and/or the libmodbus (core or our fork with rtu_usb branch) - that
> the USB connections tend to fall apart, as tracked at
> https://github.com/networkupstools/nut/issues/2609 and others linked from
> it - for now I've exhausted the hardware-less ideas and the time I had;
> help is welcome.
>
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This Easter bunny is finally out of the cage! NUT v2.8.3 is out :)

Thanks to everyone for testing and to those posting last-minute fixes and
feature-completions - you know who you are. Our heroes!

Jim Klimov

PS: As my colleague at a previous job used to announce as head of QA during
the gate-go meetings, "All bugs have been added to this release".
We always assumed, English not being the first language, this meant
issue-tracker items categorized as bugs (and so their fixes). Anyhow, the
running joke stuck with all of us :)


On Fri, Mar 28, 2025 at 10:27?AM Jim Klimov <jimklimov+nut at gmail.com>
wrote:
> Hello all,
>
>   It has been too long that I was feeling a release is just around the
> corner, just gotta tie up a few loose ends. The significant ones we had are
> finally tied, some others delayed to v2.8.4 trail, and a documentation
> refresh remains. Thanks to some package maintainers taking a look at the
> master branch, some issues with "dist" archive creation and
parallel builds
> were also located and addressed.
>
>   So, it is that time of the year again, folks, when flowers bloom and
> code gets ripe for picking a new release snapshot -- so everybody is
> welcome to give it a round during the weekend. After too many hopeful
> deadlines missed, I hope to at least not exceed a year since the last
> release snapshot :)
>
>   As usual,
>
https://github.com/networkupstools/nut/wiki/Building-NUT-for-in%E2%80%90place-upgrades-or-non%E2%80%90disruptive-tests
> (and the build prerequisites linked from there as
>
https://networkupstools.org/docs/user-manual.chunked/_build_prerequisites_to_make_nut_from_scratch_on_various_operating_systems.html)
> should help you get started.
>
> Hoping for good news and no blocker issues,
> Jim Klimov
>
> PS: One known problem remains with the recently introduced apc_modbus
> driver and/or the libmodbus (core or our fork with rtu_usb branch) - that
> the USB connections tend to fall apart, as tracked at
> https://github.com/networkupstools/nut/issues/2609 and others linked from
> it - for now I've exhausted the hardware-less ideas and the time I had;
> help is welcome.
>
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