Hello AUR users, First of all, I want to apologize: this was deployed about 6 hours ago without a prior announcement. This was completely my fault and done in a bit of haste. There are a few bugs seen so far which have been worked out and deployed, but there are some final patches waiting to be deployed on the morning of 2022-02-05, 6-8 hours from now. There are likely to be some other issues we have not yet encountered. We have introduced an error reporting system to let us know when these occur; if users hit an internal server error, a traceback will be logged out and a notification sent to a devops postmaster. They can then locate the traceback by a particular ID. So, as users run into serious issues, we'll get information about them automatically. That being said, I desperately ask that users who encounter bugs from here-on out which are not the result of an internal server error report them to us at https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/aurweb/-/issues using the Bug template. This kind of bug reporting will really help us. Now, on to what's changed for users: With the v6.0.0 release, aurweb now runs on Python using the Starlette/FastAPI framework. While a complete list of changes from v6.0.0 up to the current patch (v6.0.6) can be viewed at https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/aurweb/-/tags, I'd like to show a few notable changes at the bottom of this message. Regarding there have been some modifications to the RPC API endpoints which have broken some clients in AUR helpers. Some AUR helpers were using the `/rpc.php/` endpoint to query the RPC, but this was removed with the advent of v6.0.0. There are two issues here: our Python code redirects trailing slashes to their unslashed counterparts, and we did not support the `/rpc.php` endpoint at all: we supported the `/rpc` endpoint. These have been addressed in v6.0.6 with the following changes: - https://gitlab.archlinux.org/kevr/aurweb/-/commit/0c1bd982ea0958722366bc5a17... - https://gitlab.archlinux.org/kevr/aurweb/-/commit/101de8e7b18916dd84ae52d39f... A deprecation notice will be posted regarding `/rpc.php`. Clients will have one month to migrate over to the `/rpc` endpoint, and we'll continue to support non-redirected trailing slash queries. Again, sorry for the inconvenience in that regard, and a few others. Changes ======= Release v6.0.0 - Python This documents UX and functional changes for the v6.0.0 aurweb release. Following this release, we'll be working on a few very nice features noted at the end of this article in Upcoming Work. Preface ------- This v6.0.0 release makes the long-awaited Python port official. Along with the development of the python port, we have modified a number of features. There have been some integral changes to how package requests are dealt with, so _Trusted Users_ should read the entirety of this document. Legend ------ There are a few terms which I'd like to define to increase understanding of these changes as they are listed: - _self_ - Refers to a user viewing or doing something regarding their own account - _/pkgbase/{name}/{action}_ - Refers to a POST action which can be triggered via the relevent package page at `/{pkgbase,packages}/{name}`. Grouped changes explained in multiple items will always be prefixed with the same letter surrounded by braces. Example: - [A] Some feature that does something - [A] The same feature where another thing has changed Infrastructure -------------- - Python packaging is now done with poetry. - SQLite support has been removed. This was done because even though SQLAlchemy is an ORM, SQLite has quite a few SQL-server-like features missing both out of the box and integrally which force us to account for the different database types. We now only support mysql, and should be able to support postgresql without much effort in the future. Note: Users wishing to easily spin up a database quickly can use `docker-compose up -d mariadb` for a Docker-hosted mariadb service. - An example systemd service has been included at `examples/aurweb.service`. - Example wrappers to `aurweb-git-(auth|serve|update)` have been included at `examples/aurweb-git-(auth|serve|update).sh` and should be used to call these scripts when aurweb is installed into a poetry virtualenv. HTML ---- - Pagers have all been modified. They still serve the same purpose, but they have slightly different display. - Some markup and methods around the website has been changed for post requests, and some forms have been completely reworked. Package Requests ---------------- - Normal users can now view and close their own requests - [A] Requests can no longer be accepted through manual closures - [A] Requests are now closed via their relevent actions - Deletion - Through `/packages` bulk delete action - Through `/pkgbase/{name}/delete` - Merge - Through `/pkgbase/{name}/merge` - Orphan - Through `/packages` bulk disown action - Through `/pkgbase/{name}/disown` - Deletion and merge requests (and their closures) are now autogenerated if no pre-existing request exists. This was done to increase tracking of package modifications performed by those with access to do so (TUs). - Deletion, merge and orphan request actions now close all (1 or more) requests pertaining to the action performed. This comes with the downside of multiple notifications sent out about a closure if more than one request (or no request) exists for them - Merge actions now automatically reject other pre-existing merge requests with a mismatched `MergeBaseName` column when a merge action is performed - The last `/requests` page no longer goes nowhere Package Bulk Actions: /packages ------------------------------- - The `Merge into` field has been removed. Merges now require being performed via the `/pkgbase/{name}/merge` action. Package View ------------ - Some cached metadata is no longer cached (pkginfo). Previously, this was defaulted to a one day cache for some package information. If we need to bring this back, we can. TU Proposals ------------ - A valid username is now required for any addition or removal of a TU. RPC --- - `type=get-comment-form` has been removed and is now located at `/pkgbase/{name}/comments/{id}/form`. - Support for versions 1-4 have been removed. - JSON key ordering is different than PHP's JSON. - `type=search` performance is overall slightly worse than PHP's. This should not heavily affect users, as a 3,000 record query is returned in roughly 0.20ms from a local standpoint. We will be working on this in aim to push it over PHP. Archives -------- - Added metadata archive `packages-meta-v1.json.gz`. - Added metadata archive `packages-meta-ext-v1.json.gz`. - Enable this by passing `--extended` to `aurweb-mkpkglists`. Performance Changes ------------------- As is expected from a complete rewrite of the website, performance has changed across the board. In most places, Python's implementation now performs better than the pre-existing PHP implementation, with the exception of a few routes. Notably: - `/` loads much quicker as it is now persistently cached forcibly for five minutes at a time. - `/packages` search is much quicker. - `/packages/{name}` view is slightly slower; we are no longer caching various pieces of package info for `cache_pkginfo_ttl`, which is defaulted to 86400 seconds, or one day. - Request actions are slower due to the removal of the `via` parameter. We now query the database for requests related to the action based on the current state of the DB. - `/rpc?type=info` queries are slightly quicker. - `/rpc?type=search` queries of low result counts are quicker. - `/rpc?type=search` queries of large result counts (> 2500) are slower. - We are not satisfied with this. We'll be working on pushing this over the edge along with the rest of the DB-intensive routes. However, the speed degredation is quite negligible for users' experience: 0.12ms PHP vs 0.15ms Python on a 3,000 record query on my local 4-core 8-thread system. Upcoming Work ------------- This release is the first major release of the Python implementation. We have multiple tasks up for work immediately, which will bring us a few more minor versions forward as they are completed. - Update request and tu vote pagers [Missing] - SSO support for accounts.archlinux.org - Archive differentials - Archive mimetypes - (a) Git scripts to ORM conversion - (a) Sharness removal - Restriction of number of requests users can submit -- Kevin Morris Software & Linux Enthusiast