[Pkg-puppet-devel] Bug#584766: puppet: Should output an error if server/client versions are incompatible

[Chris Butler]

Package: puppet
Version: 0.25.4-2~bpo50+1
Severity: minor

I've just been trying to set up my first puppet installation, and spent a
bit of time trying to work out why my squeeze client had troubles connecting
to the lenny server. There wasn't much in the way of useful error messages,
just the client waiting for a certificate from the server, and the server
claiming there were no certificates to be signed.

I eventually found a bit in the documentation that mentioned that there
"might be issues" when trying to connect a newer client to an older server.
Once I discovered this, I installed the backports of the newer puppet on the
server and all was well.

However, this would've been much easier to debug if the client and/or server
had logged an error message indicating that the two versions were
incompatible. It would be nice if the client could perform a version check
when first connecting to the server.

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 5.0.4
  APT prefers stable
  APT policy: (500, 'stable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.26-2-openvz-amd64 (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_GB.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_GB.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8) (ignored: LC_ALL set to en_GB.UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash

Versions of packages puppet depends on:
ii  adduser                 3.110            add and remove users and groups
ii  facter                  1.5.1-0.1        a library for retrieving facts fro
ii  libopenssl-ruby         4.2              OpenSSL interface for Ruby
ii  libruby [libxmlrpc-ruby 4.2              Libraries necessary to run Ruby 1.
ii  libshadow-ruby1.8       1.4.1-8          Interface of shadow password for R
ii  libxmlrpc-ruby          4.2              transitional dummy package
ii  lsb-base                3.2-20           Linux Standard Base 3.2 init scrip
ii  puppet-common           0.25.4-2~bpo50+1 common files for puppet and puppet
ii  ruby1.8                 1.8.7.72-3lenny1 Interpreter of object-oriented scr

Versions of packages puppet recommends:
ii  libaugeas-ruby1.8        0.3.0-1~bpo50+1 Augeas bindings for the Ruby langu
ii  rdoc                     4.2             Generate documentation from ruby s

Versions of packages puppet suggests:
pn  puppet-el               <none>           (no description available)
ii  vim-puppet              0.25.4-2~bpo50+1 Vim syntax highlighting for puppet

-- no debconf information

-- 
Chris Butler <chrisb at debian.org>
  GnuPG Key ID: 1024D/D097A261