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DNF 2.0

Summary

DNF rebase to version 2.0.

Owner

Current status

Detailed Description

DNF-2.0 is the next upcoming major version of DNF package manager. Unfortunately, it brings some incompatibilities with previous version of DNF (DNF-1) which were either needed to preserve compatibility with YUM CLI or where bigger redesigns were needed. A list of identified incompatible changes can be found here[1].

Benefit to Fedora

DNF-2 is the upstream DNF version, the only version actively developed. Currently the upstream contains many user requested features, increased compatibility with yum and over 30 bug fixes. To DNF-1 back porting of patches from upstream is difficult and only critical security and usability fixes will be cherry-picked to Fedora.

Scope

  • Proposal owners:
    • complete release notes 
    • deliver DNF-2.0 stack to Rawhide
  • Other developers:
    • Owners of 3rd party DNF plugins or components depending on DNF should check and adjust their packages otherwise they may not work with DNF-2.0.
  • Release engineering:
    • All release engineering tools that depends on DNF should be tested against DNF-2.0.

Upgrade/compatibility impact

Plugins based on DNF-1 providing commands will abort run of DNF. Any Python script or extension using 5 changed methods in DNF-2 will not work correctly. Components using DNF private Python functions could experience some issues. User or applications calling DNF CLI API can experience differences if any of 2 changed options were used. The code changes are needed for applications affected by mentioned changes. For main applications requiring DNF the patches were provided.

How To Test

  • you can install DNF-2 from this COPR repo for testing
  • testing scenarios:
    • anaconda installation
    •  upgrade from previous Fedora version
    • core functionality: install, upgrade, remove, repoquery
    •  dnf-plugins: copr, system-upgrade, download
    • third party software: mock, yumex

User Experience

Users can notice usability improvements of DNF like better messages during resolution errors, showing whether package was installed as weak dependency, better handling of obsolete packages, less tracebacks, etc. One command line option and one configuration option changed semantic so DNF could behave differently in some way (these changes are compatible with yum but incompatible with DNF-1). See "Upgrade/compatibility impact" section when DNF could crash if components are not adjusted to DNF-2 changes.

Dependencies

Table showing all packages which requires dnf, python3-dnf or python2-dnf in Fedora 26:

Package DNF-2.0 compatibility patch Status
anaconda-core https://github.com/rhinstaller/anaconda/pull/763 Agreed to merge after DNF release
auter Informed
calamares Informed
copr-frontend Informedd
devassistant-core Informed
dnf-automatic In the upstream Compatible
dnf-plugin-spacewalk Informed
dnf-plugin-subscription-manager Informed
dnf-plugin-system-upgrade https://github.com/rpm-software-management/dnf-plugins-extras/pull/66 In progress
dnf-plugins-core In the upstream working with DNF-2
dnf-plugins-extras In the upstream working with DNF-2
dnf-yum In the upstream Compatible
dnfdaemon https://github.com/timlau/dnf-daemon/pull/6 working with DNF-2
etckeeper-dnf Informed
fedora-upgrade Informed
freight-tools Informed
freight-tools-agent Informed
freight-tools-proxy Informed
libreport-python Informed
libreport-python3 Informed
libtaskotron-fedora Informed
lorax Informed
policycoreutils-devel Informed
python3-dnf-plugin-system-upgrade https://github.com/rpm-software-management/dnf-plugins-extras/pull/66 In progress
rhn-client-tools Informed
rolekit Informed
supermin Informed
system-config-language Informed

Contingency Plan

  • Contingency mechanism:
    • revert to DNF-1.1.x (epoch bump)
    • revert to dnf-plugins-core-0.1.x (epoch bump)
    • revert to dnf-plugins-extras-0.0.x (epoch bump)
    • revert to dnf-plugin-system-upgrade-0.7.x (epoch bump)
    • consequent rollback of already ported components in the table where the change for dnf-2.0 was needed
  • Contingency deadline: F26 Alpha Freeze
  • Blocks release? Yes

Documentation

documented differences between 1.x and 2.0

Release Notes