Bug 345425

Assuming from bug #345424 you are using KDE version.

Jano, is there any chance to add a refresh command to zypper's xml input we've discussed some weeks ago? In this case opensuseupdater could send a refresh command every time it runs zypper because opensuseupdater would run only if network is available.

I'm not sure i understand, do you mean xml _output_ perhaps? Because i see no problem with invoking zypper refresh <repo> even now except the output. Yes, it seems i have to work on it ASAP, since you guys depend on it too much :O)

(In reply to comment #3 from Jan Kupec)
> I'm not sure i understand, do you mean xml _output_ perhaps? Because i see no
> problem with invoking zypper refresh <repo> even now except the output.
Please excuse my unclear question.
I mean some mechanism within the xml to tell zypper to refresh its repos before it starts an operation like checking for patches when autorefresh is disabled:

 (ugly xml-like syntax)

 <refresh/>
 <checkpatches/>
 <checkupdates/>

> Yes, it seems i have to work on it ASAP, since you guys depend on it 
> too much :O)
That would be great but it isn't that urgent. I would like to add the xml-in/out mechanism to the updater for the alpha version. Don't hurry.

(In reply to comment #4 from Thomas Goettlicher)
> (In reply to comment #3 from Jan Kupec)
> > I'm not sure i understand, do you mean xml _output_ perhaps? Because i see no
> > problem with invoking zypper refresh <repo> even now except the output.
> Please excuse my unclear question.
> I mean some mechanism within the xml to tell zypper to refresh its repos before
> it starts an operation like checking for patches when autorefresh is disabled:
> 
>  (ugly xml-like syntax)
> 
>  <refresh/>
>  <checkpatches/>
>  <checkupdates/>

I still don't understand why not simply executing zypper refresh before checking for updates. You can also do it per repo (refresh only the update repos).

(In reply to comment #5 from Ján Kupec)
> I still don't understand why not simply executing zypper refresh before
> checking for updates. You can also do it per repo (refresh only the update
> repos).
As we decided not to use checkpatches-wrapper anymore, checking for patches runs with user privileges but "zypper refresh" needs root privileges. How can I refresh the update repo without annoying the user with a password prompt?

I meant to drop zypp-check-patches (since we don't need the code anymore as zypper --xmlout provides it), not the suid wrapper.

If we need the suid wrapper, let's just use it. Allright, we can rename it to zypper-wrapper or something similar now. We can also make it a general wrapper for all zypper commands (passing all the arguments) if that makes sense to anyone or to stick with just refreshing (and checking updates?).

(In reply to comment #8 from Ján Kupec)
> We can also make it a general wrapper
> for all zypper commands (passing all the arguments) if that makes sense to

Ehm. Please forget i ever said this part :O)

(In reply to comment #8 from Ján Kupec)
> I meant to drop zypp-check-patches (since we don't need the code anymore as
> zypper --xmlout provides it), not the suid wrapper.
Ok, it's clear to me, now.

(In reply to comment #9 from Ján Kupec)
> Ehm. Please forget i ever said this part :O)
Done. I can't remember anything. :-)

I can think of three different ways how to run a refresh before checking for patches:

i)
The updater applets call a zypper-refresh-wrapper before checking for patches.
This would mean to add another suid-root wrapper and to duplicate code in each applet for calling two programs for one action.

ii)
Writing a wrapper for the wrappers: A refresh-and-check-wrapper that calls a suid-root'ed zypper-refresh-wrapper and after that checks for pachtes.
Writing a wrapper for a wrapper isn't really nice.

iii)
Adding a refresh before checking for patches in zypper. Perhaps as a option of 
the xml-updates command or even hard-wired.

I would prefer iii.
Jano, can you think of a better way?

Only the refresh command requires root access. What about having zypper-refresh-wrapper only and run the query commands (list-updates, patches, search, info) as user.

BTW: please try to use zypper --xmlout -t package -t patch instead of xml-updates, it should do just that now. I'd like to drop the xml-updates command.

(In reply to comment #12 from Ján Kupec)
> BTW: please try to use zypper --xmlout -t package -t patch instead of
> xml-updates, it should do just that now. I'd like to drop the xml-updates
> command.

i mean zypper --xmlout list-updates -t package -t patch :O)

(In reply to comment #12 from Ján Kupec)
>  What about having zypper-refresh-wrapper only and run the query commands
> (list-updates, patches, search, info) as user.
That would mean having a shell script 'zypper-refresh-and-check' with the following two calls: 
 /usr/sbin/zypper-refresh-wrapper
 /usr/bin/zypper --xmlout list-updates -t package -t patch 

Yes, I guess it might work but I think it isn't the cleanest solution.
- This would add another not really needed zypper helper script.
- Getting concatenated snippets of xml might confuse the applets (particularly opensuseupdater-gnome, as its xml parser isn't very tolerant)

I'd prefer the functionality embedded into zypper because 'refresh' and 'list-updates' belongs together. Is there any cause not to add this to zypper?

Fixed in opensuseupdater-kde4. Version will be 0.7.5.