ownCloud Server 8 released [LWN.net]

Version 8 of the ownCloud server is available. "This new release brings improved sharing and collaboration between clouds and introduces faster ways of getting at your files with favorites and improved search." See the feature page for details.

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ownCloud Server 8 released

Posted Feb 10, 2015 0:09 UTC (Tue) by callegar (guest, #16148) [Link] (13 responses)

Just had an automatic update via the deb packages on the suse factory.

Had my data on a second hard disk, with the data directory pointed to via a symbolic link, because my var partition is small.

The owncloud updated packages nicely removed the link, set up a new data dir, performed the update, discarded the old database, sort of lost an hard disk of data. Sad. My mistake probably. However, having the updater signaling the database/filesystem incoherence before messing everything up would have been appreciated.

ownCloud Server 8 released

Posted Feb 10, 2015 0:38 UTC (Tue) by callegar (guest, #16148) [Link] (3 responses)

Fortunately, data is there as expected and luckily 'rescan' has probably worked in rebuilding the database out of it. Wonder if share info is still in place and if file history and past versions are OK in the DB.

ownCloud Server 8 released

Posted Feb 10, 2015 11:23 UTC (Tue) by tpo (subscriber, #25713) [Link]

Oh!

Please let us know. Similar setup here, although no fully automatic updates being done here.

So I'd appreciate to hear how everything turned out in the end.

ownCloud Server 8 released

Posted Feb 18, 2015 1:26 UTC (Wed) by richarson (subscriber, #74226) [Link] (1 responses)

I just wanted to point out that you don't need to make a symlink, the path to your data directory is configurable (the aptly named 'datadirectory' parameter in config.php).

I also hope the rescan will restore your database, alt least it saved me from a hard MySQL crash.

(I don't install owncloud from packages but directly from the sources, as it's not so complicated).

Cheers.

ownCloud Server 8 released

Posted Feb 19, 2015 12:16 UTC (Thu) by callegar (guest, #16148) [Link]

Thanks for the note. I discovered it too and that is why I wrote "my fault". Your reminder can be quite helpful for others, though!

ownCloud Server 8 released

Posted Feb 10, 2015 13:37 UTC (Tue) by ledow (guest, #11753) [Link]

One of the reasons I never have auto-updates enabled on anything.

This is my prime worry with OwnCloud - if I'm putting my hardware in place to do these things because I don't trust external companies, I have to be able to trust the hardware/software setup more than I do Google Drive / DropBox etc.

I have set it up several times but never got to the point that I've trusted my data to it - precisely because I've ended up setting it up several times.

ownCloud Server 8 released

Posted Feb 10, 2015 20:24 UTC (Tue) by sjj (guest, #2020) [Link] (7 responses)

*Not* your mistake.

Symlinked directory pointing to bigger volume is such a basic and common pattern that when an updater ignores it, the only conclusion is that the developer just doesn't care about their users' data.

This is also precisely where distros provide value by sanity checking developers. Or have provided, since the glorious future seems to include software installations controlled directly by upstreams.

ownCloud Server 8 released

Posted Feb 10, 2015 22:39 UTC (Tue) by mbunkus (subscriber, #87248) [Link] (3 responses)

I'm not sure I agree. You're replacing a component managed by a packet (a certain directory) with something else (a symlink). Depending on the package manager this is almost always at least dangerous during upgrades.

That's why I usually use bind mounts – that way a directory stays a directory.

ownCloud Server 8 released

Posted Feb 10, 2015 22:47 UTC (Tue) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (2 responses)

If you have a bind mount on a directory and an application deletes and recreates that directory, what happens to your bind mount? or does the bind mount make it so that the application can't delete the directory and the upgrade ends up failing with things partially deleted?

The real answer is that the application should not be deleting and recreating things like this.

ownCloud Server 8 released

Posted Feb 10, 2015 23:01 UTC (Tue) by mbunkus (subscriber, #87248) [Link]

Removing a directory something is currently mounted on is not possible, so that step will fail.

My impression of the original post was that it was the package upgrade that removed the symlink and replaced it with a directory, not the owncloud applications themselves. Re-reading the post now I see that the applications could have been meant.

Either way, I still prefer bind mounts. They look and behave like directories. If a package upgrades changes the permission on that directory it will just work. If you want to tar the whole directory tree it will include the data (and not the symlink). From the POV of the package manager it remains a directory, just what the package says it should be.

ownCloud Server 8 released

Posted Feb 11, 2015 15:25 UTC (Wed) by malor (guest, #2973) [Link]

Yeah, I'd agree with that -- if you're doing an update on someone's installation, you shouldn't be deleting anything. You should always, always be leaving a safety net so that the user can easily return to what they had before. Ideally, you should be providing the tools for a rollback, so they end up exactly where they started. Not doing this is disrespectful of their time and data.

This is particularly true for this package, because the fundamental goal is to let the user run local code that supposedly replaces the expertise they buy with cloud apps. The local code needs to be very, very careful.

Yes, this is hard. I know it's hard. Maybe it's so hard that, in practice, it's impossible. But, nonetheless, if you're telling someone they can run their own cloud, the code you're giving them needs to be super-reliable.

ownCloud Server 8 released

Posted Feb 11, 2015 15:00 UTC (Wed) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link] (2 responses)

> Or have provided, since the glorious future seems to include software installations controlled directly by upstreams.

There is no reason why a distribution can't advise a upstream how to package the software. Especially when the distribution itself provides a pool of packages for the end users to easily pull from. Also it's useful to remember that distributions make plenty of hair-brained mistakes also. And if the original developer can't do a good job writing their software then it's unlikely the distribution is going to be able to improve it.

If the current model of having distributions compile and package software is so awesome then why didn't the above user just install owncloud from the distro's package?

ownCloud Server 8 released

Posted Feb 12, 2015 18:35 UTC (Thu) by sjj (guest, #2020) [Link]

You're responding to claims I didn't make. I said distros provide value, not that they are "so awesome". I do have a lot of respect for people working on distros, it's a thankless job that has benefited me directly for a couple decades now.

Also, clearly, the traditional distro model isn't working so well with rapidly changing language runtimes today. I just hope we don't throw out the baby with the bathwater.

ownCloud Server 8 released

Posted Feb 19, 2015 12:25 UTC (Thu) by callegar (guest, #16148) [Link]

As a matter of fact, owncloud is not present (or was not present) in debian wheezy when I started.