[Spice-devel] [nsis v3 2/2] build: Don't add .pdb debug files to the installer

[Yedidyah Bar David]

On Sun, Dec 31, 2017 at 5:00 PM, Vadim Rozenfeld <vrozenfe at redhat.com>
wrote:

>
>
> On 31/12/17 19:24, Yan Vugenfirer wrote:
>
>
>
> On 31 Dec 2017, at 08:55, Yedidyah Bar David <didi at redhat.com> wrote:
>
> On Fri, Dec 29, 2017 at 3:36 AM, Vadim Rozenfeld <vrozenfe at redhat.com>
> wrote:
>
>
>
> On 29/12/17 03:31, Yan Vugenfirer wrote:
>
>
>
> On 28 Dec 2017, at 16:44, Amnon Ilan <ailan at redhat.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
>
> From: "Lev Veyde" <lveyde at redhat.com>
> To: "Yedidyah Bar David" <didi at redhat.com>
> Cc: "Frediano Ziglio" <fziglio at redhat.com>, "Christophe Fergeau"
> <cfergeau at redhat.com>,
> spice-devel at lists.freedesktop.org, "Amnon Ilan" <ailan at redhat.com>
> Sent: Thursday, December 28, 2017 1:13:24 PM
> Subject: Re: [Spice-devel] [nsis v3 2/2] build: Don't add .pdb debug files
> to the installer
>
> Hi Didi (and the guys),
>
> We don't ship debug information in our d/s WGT, and personally I'm not sure
> how useful it really may be, e.g. if the customers will get BSOD if that
> will show any more useful information.
>
> Luckily our VirtIO-Win drivers are quite stable, so we don't have many such
> issues anyhow.
> But I think it's best to see what VirtIO-Win guys think about it.
> Amnon, what is your view on this?
>
>
> I do not think we need to install pdb files, but should have it accessible
> somewhere.
>
> Vadim, Yan, can you comment on that?
>
>
> Hello,
>
> I think they should be kept together with build artefacts. When we get bug
> reports from the field we use pdb files distributed with specific build
> ISO.
> But if you repackage the virtio-win package into  RHV-guest-tools
> installer,
> then I don’t see specific need to keep PDB files as long as we can clearly
> connect between  RHV-guest-tools version and virtio-win version.
>
> If we want to let end users running live or postmortem debug session on
> their own, then shipping .pdb files is a must.
>
>
> Is it a must to have them preinstalled?
>
> I realize it is, if you have a one-time non-reproducible failure.
> But if it happens more than once, you can install a -debug or -pdb
> package we'll provide with the pdb files, so that next time you can
> debug.
>
>
> Are you proposing to have debug package? As far as I know we don’t have
> such package today.
> It can be a solution for a future.
>
> For now, in my opinion, PDB files should be part of ISO and RPM. They
> don’t need to be installed on the guest by the guest tools installer.
>
> +1
> Usually there is no need to install .pdb file on a target system, unless a
> driver provides WPP tracing support and a user wants to watch trace
> logs coming from that driver.
>

Very well.

Posted an alternative to current patch:

"Do not install .pdb debug files on the target system".

Pushed it to ovirt's gerrit:

https://gerrit.ovirt.org/85835

Verified the result on Windows 10.

Size of "C:\Program Files (x86)\ovirt guest tools" went down from
around 600MB to around 150MB.

Also the exe installer, ISO rpm are ~ 30 MB smaller.


>
> Cheers,
> Vadim.
>
>
> Best regards,
> Yan.
>
>
> Having in the same package means it's more comfortable to debug in
> general and also possible to debug hard-to-reproduce failures.
>
> Having them in a separate package means that users that do not need
> to debug, do not have to spend time/space/bandwidth to install them.
>
> So it's a tradeoff, not a pure yes/no question.
>
>
> Vadim.
>
>
> Best regards,
> Yan.
>
>
> Thanks,
> Amnon
>
>
> My personal opinion is that for u/s users we may provide these files as a
> separate package or simply forward them to the u/s VirtIO-Win ISO.
> However I don't mind to keep things as is and having them as part of the
> base installer for simplicity of distribution.
> After all the new versions are not frequent and have to be downloaded only
> once per oVirt instance, so the increased download size should not be an
> issue.
>
> If anything, I'm more concerned with the waste of the disk space of the VM,
> and even that should not be a critical issue in most cases.
> So it would be nice to have an option to install the debug information
> during the install, so the user could choose by himself.
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> On Thu, Dec 21, 2017 at 9:53 AM, Yedidyah Bar David <didi at redhat.com>
> wrote:
>
> On Wed, Dec 20, 2017 at 4:10 PM, Frediano Ziglio <fziglio at redhat.com>
> wrote:
>
>
> On Tue, Dec 19, 2017 at 11:26:00AM -0500, Frediano Ziglio wrote:
>
>
> The .pdb files contain the debug information for the drivers. They
> increase significantly the size of the installer, so it's better
>
> not to
>
> ship them.
>
>
> On the other side bug report will contain much less informations.
> Not really sure about it.
>
>
> Which bug reports? :) (I don't think I ever got any report about driver
> crashes). I would reconsider when we start getting bug reports where we
> need these symbols.
>
> Christophe
>
>
> No idea, was just thinking that if somebody packaged these files maybe
>
> they want
>
> them installed. They are not directly in the virtio-win package but in
>
> the ISO.
>
> Maybe we should remove from the ISO too ?
> I had a look at the inf files and they not reference the pdb files.
>
>
> Adding Lev.
>
> Lev - do we ship pdb files in RHV-guest-tools?
> Did we ever get bug reports about drivers that included relevant
> information
> which is not available without the pdb files?
>
> Thanks,
> --
> Didi
>
>
>
>
> --
>
> Lev Veyde
>
> Software Engineer, RHCE | RHCVA | MCITP
>
> Red Hat Israel
>
> <https://www.redhat.com>
>
> lev at redhat.com | lveyde at redhat.com
> <https://red.ht/sig>
> TRIED. TESTED. TRUSTED. <https://redhat.com/trusted>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> Didi
>
>
>
>


-- 
Didi
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