[pkg-bacula-devel] Bug#954971: should not try to send a traceback in production

[Antoine Beaupré]

On 2020-03-26 20:36:15, Carsten Leonhardt wrote:
> Hi Antoine,
>
>> Bacula seems to be configured to unconditionnally send a backtrace
>> when it crashes. The TRACEBACK define seems to be unconditionnally set
>> in `version.h`, regardless of any configuration flag. (Same with
>> DEBUG, by the way.)
>>
>> Production software should require us to ship with debugging
>> symbols. If it fails and crashes and burn, it should send a proper,
>> actionable, error message instead of going crazy.
>
> the crash you see happens after clear error messages are given, see the
> transcript at the end. Even if not run in the foreground, clear error
> messages are sent to syslog.

The error gets sent to syslog, sure, but not by email.

> It's neither required to have debugging symbols installed nor to have
> gdb installed. The report will just be less useful for debugging
> purposes. Usually an email is generated when a crash happens, whatever
> the exact content is, it does alert the admin to the fact that there is
> a problem.

True.

> Could you explain how you would want this improved?

I would prefer that no email is sent at all, or have that
configurable. I would prefer, in fact, that TRACEBACK is disabled at
compile time, unless the debugging symbols are shipped.

A.

-- 
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It is a relative term. Evil can be transmuted into good.
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becomes good at another time to somebody else.
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