Bug #12326: Some important fixes are not getting backported - Ceph - Ceph

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Bug #12326

closed

Some important fixes are not getting backported

Added by Nathan Cutler almost 9 years ago. Updated about 7 years ago.

Status:

Resolved

Priority:

Normal

Assignee:

Category:

Target version:

% Done:

Source:

Community (dev)

Tags:

Backport:

Regression:

Severity:

3 - minor

Reviewed:

Affected Versions:

ceph-qa-suite:

Pull request ID:

Crash signature (v1):

Crash signature (v2):

Description

We have a backporting policy which says¹

If you are fixing a bug (see above) and the bug exists in older stable
    branches (for example, the "dumpling" or "firefly" branches), then you
    should file a Redmine ticket describing your issue and fill out the
    "Backport: &lt;branchname&gt;" form field. This will notify other developers that
    your commit should be cherry-picked to these stable branches. For example,
    you should set "Backport: firefly" in your Redmine ticket to indicate that
    you are fixing a bug that exists on the "firefly" branch and that you
    desire that your change be cherry-picked to that branch.

However, this policy is not always being followed. It seems that it conflicts with a prior policy or practice of putting a line

Backport: firefly, hammer

in the commit message. This is problematic, however, because once the commit has been merged into master, the commit message is immutable: if the Backport line there is wrong for any reason, there is no way to correct it.

Here are two examples of important fixes that were earmarked for backport using the latter practice:

The former had no tracker issue associated with it at all, while the latter did have a tracker issue, but it was marked Resolved and its Backport field was empty. I found these two issues by going through the master git log with --grep Backport, but this is a very time-consuming process that the backports team cannot be relied upon to do.

This is an organizational bug the solution to which (if any) is non-obvious. We already have a policy that would ensure that no backports are passed over, if only everyone followed it. Perhaps it is just a matter of raising awareness? Or maybe adhering to the policy is too onerous/time-consuming and places an undue burden on developers?

For completeness, the two issues mentioned above are now associated with the following issues:

[1] https://github.com/ceph/ceph/blob/master/SubmittingPatches#L267