Feature changed by: Ancor Gonzalez Sosa (ancorgs) Feature #320873, revision 17 Title: [R] Remove copy_to_system from control.xml and AutoYaST openSUSE Distribution: Done Priority Requester: Desirable Requested by: Ancor Gonzalez Sosa (ancorgs) Partner organization: openSUSE.org Description: In 2006 an generic mechanism to (silently) copy files from an existing filesystem to the system being installed was introduced in YaST as part of the implementation of two different features (fate#120103 and fate#300421). Any information to the user about the files being copied was intentionally left out (see comments in #300421). In 2008 the list of files was moved to control.xml and the AutoYaST profile (fate#305019). But the documentation and schema for the AutoYaST profile were never updated to reflect the change. We have received several bug reports and Fate entries about it since then, from incomplete lists of files (bug#956515, bug#956976) to non- intuitive or incomplete behavior (fate#319624, bug#956976) and everything in between. Starting with yast2-installation 3.1.187 and yast2-users 3.1.49, the original features do not longer need to use "copy_to_system" and the corresponding section is now empty in the control files of both SLE and openSUSE. I would like to completely drop the "copy_to_system" feature since it's obscure (everything happen behind user's back), problematic (quite some bug reports), not necessary (not longer needed by the originating features) and poorly documented (not even in the AutoYaST schema). References: Historic background https://features.opensuse.org/120103 (https://features.opensuse.org/120103) https://features.opensuse.org/300421 (https://features.opensuse.org/300421) https://features.opensuse.org/305019 (https://features.opensuse.org/305019) Related bugs/fate requests https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=956515 (https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=956515) https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=956976 (https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=956976) https://features.opensuse.org/319624 (https://features.opensuse.org/319624) Documentation Impact: The AutoYaST feature is not documented, but we should remove/update this piece of information: Importing files from previous installation (https://github.com/yast/yast-installation/blob/57f377dec11106a3d3d8ff018a466...) Use Case: As a regular user installing a fresh Linux distribution (this is not related to updates), I don't expect random files from my previous Linux installations to be copied to the new system without even giving me the opportunity to choose from with installation (or whether I want that copy at all). Discussion: #1: Marcus Kraft (marcuskraft) (2016-11-30 15:10:34) @Fredric: looks like a cleanup effort, to make autoyast more robust. However, if efforts vs stability is of concern, we might defer this to SLE 13 / SLES 12 SP4. #2: Jiri Srain (jsrain) (2016-12-01 13:40:29) As clean-up, I will definitely not block this one. Lukas, just evaluate according to the team capacity, it can be defered to SLE13 if necessary. #3: Marcus Kraft (marcuskraft) (2017-02-21 13:52:54Z) Please reevaluate for SLE 13. #4: Jiri Srain (jsrain) (2017-03-14 07:52:19Z) Moving forward, as it is a team request and code clean-up. Just keep in mind to document the removal. #5: Josef Reidinger (jreidinger) (2017-12-14 14:01:50) (reply to #4) it is internal stuff so no RN is needed. Removed from documentation. #6: Liam Proven (lproven) (2019-02-20 13:54:45) We are looking at this again for SLE15 SP1: https://trello.com/c/Db6j43G4/53-fate-remove-copytosystem-from-controlxml-an... Is this still an outstanding issue? I can't locate the given file in our docs sources. + #7: Ancor Gonzalez Sosa (ancorgs) (2019-02-20 14:10:01) (reply to #6) + As far as I know, the feature was not really described in any official + documentation. We removed the only mention in the yast-installation + "doc" directory (see link in the "document impact" section, which + points to an old commit, that info is not in the master branch + anymore). + So we didn't expect any change in documentation to be needed. That was + added through the back door... and we removed it in the same way. -- openSUSE Feature: https://features.opensuse.org/320873