On 7 June 2011 19:02, Evangelos Foutras wrote:

This should be moved to [core] quickly.

If you try to create a testing chroot, it will proceed to install the 'base' group. Problem is, net-tools-1.60-16 no longer belongs to that group, but the old version (1.60-14) from [core] does. However, the latter causes file conflicts with the latest coreutils package. :)

Workaround if anyone needs to create new testing chroots: - Hit ^Z after pacman has downloaded the database for [core], but before the initial database sync finishes. - Go into the chroot's /var/lib/pacman/sync. - Move core.db to core.db.tar.gz so that vim recognizes it as a gzipped tarball. - Edit the core.db.tar.gz file in place using vim and remove the base group from net-tools. - Exit vim and rename the database back to core.db. - Execute fg to resume the stopped pacman process. :p

Since these update introduces some important changes I'd like to make two announcements before it is moved to core (which should be as soon as we have the missing i686 signoff). Drafts below, comments welcome. Announcement one: ============================================= Deprecation of net-tools This April marked the ten year anniversary of the last net-tools release. We decided to look at this as an opportunity to deprecate net-tools and provide alternative, and better maintained, solutions for net-tools functionality. This has a few consequences, but most people should not notice. `hostname` ---------- This binary is now provided by `coreutils`, rather than by `net-tools`. `domainname` (a.k.a. `nisdomainname`, a.k.a `ypdomainname`) ----------------------------------------------------------- These binaries are now provided by `yp-tools`, rather than by `net-tools`. Furthermore, the domain name is no longer set by initscripts, rather it is dealt with entirely by the ypbind rc script. Before this change the domain name was handled inconsistently, sometimes being read from `/etc/conf.d/nisdomainname`, and sometimes from `/etc/defaultdomain`. From now on, the domain name is only ever read from `/etc/conf.d/nisdomainname`. `network` ------------------------------ A new syntax is introduced in `rc.conf` for configuring a simple network setup using `iproute2` rather than `net-tools`. The old functionality is still preserved for those preferring to stay with that, but do not expect updates for this. The new syntax is very simplistic and only supports one wired network device (configured statically or by dhcp) and we do not expect to add more features in the future. We want to encourage the use of more advanced network solutions, such as `networkmanager` or our own `netcfg`. Announcement two: ============================================= Changes to module blacklisting Since the dawn of time we have shipped our homegrown system for blacklisting kernel modules (in various incarnations). This has served us well, but we (or rather our various upstreams) have now reached a point where it is no longer necessary. We have therefore decided to remove all our module blacklisting logic, and rely entirely on the blacklisting provided by `modprobe`. This means a change in syntax, and a minor change in functionality. We hope that the short-term inconvenience will be justified by the long-term gain. The different notions of blacklisting -------------------------------------------- The notion of module blacklisting that we have used is (sadly) slightly different from what is used by modprobe. * our blacklisting: a blacklisted module, or any module that depends on it, will never be loaded automatically by udev, but may be loaded manually. * modprobe's blacklisting: a blacklisted module will not be loaded automatically, but may be loaded if another non-blacklisted module depends on it, or if it is loaded manually. * disabling a module: one can get similar behavior to what we used to provide by forcing a module to always fail loading, it will not be possible to load it manually. Boot time blacklisting --------------------------- Modules can be blacklisted at boot time by appending `modprobe.blacklist=mod1,mod2,mod3` to the kernel command line (in grub, lilo or syslinux). Alternatively, the modules can be disabled altogether by appending `mod1.disable=1 mod2.disable=1 mod3.disable=1` instead. Persistent blacklisting --------------------------- Rather than blacklisting modules in `rc.conf`, use modprobe's native configuration files. These can be found in /etc/modprobe.d/, and are documented in `man modprobe.d`. The replacement of `rc.d`'s `MODULES=(!mod1 !mod2 !mod3)` is to add a `.conf` file to `/etc/modprobe.d/` with the contents: blacklist mod1 blacklist mod2 blacklist mod3 Alternatively, to ensure that the modules are never inserted, even if they are needed by other modules you load: install mod1 /bin/false install mod2 /bin/false install mod3 /bin/false

On 7 June 2011 21:49, Tom Gundersen wrote:

On Tue, Jun 7, 2011 at 6:02 PM, Evangelos Foutras wrote:

...

This should be moved to [core] quickly.

If you try to create a testing chroot, it will proceed to install the 'base' group. Problem is, net-tools-1.60-16 no longer belongs to that group, but the old version (1.60-14) from [core] does. However, the latter causes file conflicts with the latest coreutils package. :)

Thanks for the heads up!

Could we have one more signoff for i686 before the move? I'll post my suggested announcements in a reply to this thread.

Here's another signoff for i686. The announcements look good too. :)