Updates: General

[Edmund Wong]

Hi All,

I hope all is well with everyone.

I've been spending a lot of time working on the update system. When I
started this project some time ago, I had just wanted to use the
old system and update (pun not intended)it. Gave up that idea and went
for something else.

Now fast forward a few years to 2020 after working on this on-and-off.
With the release process still being half-manually generated (though
the process has gotten a bit faster), I figured I'd tackle this update
issue once and for all.

I had the intention of setting up the new system such that all versions
(2.0 to 2.53.5.1 etc) can update properly. After getting a simple
working prototype running, I realized that it's no longer possible to
even update anything <= 2.23.

Our update site uses TLSv1.1 or 1.2 (and a better set of cyphers) which
these versions don't support and it's no longer possible to patch these
versions to support TLSv1.1 or TLSv1.2.

It is also not likely that we'd set the update system to use
SSLv3 or TLSv1 (thanks to Heartbleed, Poodle, and whatever
else) and set to a lower cypher set.

Errors:
Version 2.1 to 2.23 gets a 'ssl_error_no_cypher_overlap' error.

Version 2.0x gets a "Data transfer interupted" error.

I haven't tested version 1.x. or the Mozilla Suite.


So, I have come to the conclusion that it doesn't seem possible to
update 2.0 to the latest and greatest.

Here's a list of versions and their supported status:

Versions

o Mozilla Suite, 1.x, 2.0x, <= 2.23 : Not supported.
[Related gecko versions: 1.8, 1.8.1, 1.9.1, <= 26

o versions >= 2.24: Supported
[related gecko versions: >= 27]

This is only considering versions as they are; Not the underlying
operating system support.

That's my update on the updates. [Probably going to be an update to
this update that updates on the update...etc... ad nauseum]
We're nearly there. I just need to make sure that the update process
won't update systems that *shouldn't* be updated. i.e Updating 2.49.5
to 2.53 on a Winxp system or, in the case of Linux distros own compiled
versions, they also won't be updated. [Though I have been told
that Linux distros-own compiled versions won't query the update
server.]


Edmund

[Don Spam's Reckless Son]

Just one question to that: I have an ancient profile which I found on an
unused machine and where I'd like to at least have access to the emails
there.
Would a modern Seamonkey be able to understand them; are the profile
incompatibilities in the email handling, the browser side or in common
parts such as password handling? "ancient" certainly means < 2.24 and
it may even mean < 2.0.

--
spammo ergo sum, viruses courtesy of https://www.nsa.gov/malware/

[Gerry Hickman]

Edmund Wong wrote:
> Now fast forward a few years to 2020 after working on this on-and-off.
> With the release process still being half-manually generated (though
> the process has gotten a bit faster), I figured I'd tackle this update
> issue once and for all.

The way it works on Linux distros is really much better than I remember
on Windows where individual apps had their own updaters with their own
schedules, installers, and admin rights. On Linux distros, you run a
simple command and the whole o/s (and all apps) offer their updates.
SeaMonkey is already in EPEL for example, so it's a ten second job to
update it. You don't need to run an exe file (installer), you just copy
a few files, and you can even downgrade.

--
Gerry Hickman (London UK)

[Gerry Hickman]

Don Spam's Reckless Son wrote:

> Just one question to that: I have an ancient profile which I found on an
> unused machine and where I'd like to at least have access to the emails
> there.
> Would a modern Seamonkey be able to understand them

I'd say it's important that you upgrade (and test) any old profiles as
soon as possible, so they're at least compatible with the current
version. Make (and keep) a backup before upgrading.

[WaltS48]

What is EPEL?

Ubuntu doesn't provide SeaMonkey in its main repo anymore.

I have to download and install each new version over the old. An
internal app update mechanism would be greatly appreciated.

--
OS: Ubuntu Linux 18.04LTS - Gnome Desktop
https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/get-involved/
https://give.thunderbird.net/en-US/

[Gerry Hickman]

WaltS48 wrote:
> What is EPEL?

> Ubuntu doesn't provide SeaMonkey in its main repo anymore.
>
> I have to download and install each new version over the old. An
> internal app update mechanism would be greatly appreciated.

EPEL is "Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux", you can add it as a
repository to either RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux) or to CentOS. The
packages are in RPM format, (Red Hat Package Manager). The package
manager is a robust way to manage installed programs, for example
checking dependencies and preventing conflicts.

Ubuntu uses APT and *.deb packages.

[Edmund Wong]

Don Spam's Reckless Son wrote:

There will definitely be incompatabilities which could cause either
SeaMonkey to crash or the profile getting corrupted. This would
definitely apply to anything < 2.0.

As for the differences, unfortunately, I don't know the inner
workings of the profile code to tell which part would work and
which part won't.

What I do know is that there was never an automatic upgrade
path from < 2.0 to 2.0. It was always manual.

I think the best way is to backup the profile, and upgrade
SeaMonkey manually from < 2.0 to 2.0, then 2.0 to 2.1..etc
up until 2.24 (while backing up the profile as you go).

Again, I apologize for not being too specific or helpful.

Edmund

[Steve Wendt]

On 12/7/2020 4:05 PM, Edmund Wong wrote:

> What I do know is that there was never an automatic upgrade
> path from < 2.0 to 2.0. It was always manual.
>
> I think the best way is to backup the profile, and upgrade
> SeaMonkey manually from < 2.0 to 2.0, then 2.0 to 2.1..etc
> up until 2.24 (while backing up the profile as you go).

The release notes of the various versions should offer some guidance.

[Daniel]

Don Spam's Reckless Son wrote on 07/12/20 21:40:

Don, might it be possible to use MozBackup to backup the old profile,
copy the file to your new(er) computer and then use MozBackup to expand
the (old) profile into a (new) profile to see if your new(er) SeaMonkey
can make any sense of it??
--
Daniel

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:60.0) Gecko/20100101
SeaMonkey/2.53.5.1 Build identifier: 20201115194905

Linux User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:52.0)
Gecko/20100101 SeaMonkey/2.49.1 Build identifier: 20171015235623

[Michal Kec (MiK)]

WaltS48 napsal(a):

> Ubuntu doesn't provide SeaMonkey in its main repo anymore.

That's true, unfortunately. The reason is here:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/seamonkey/+bug/987713

However you can use Ubuntuzilla APT repo, if you trust the maintainers:
https://sourceforge.net/p/ubuntuzilla/wiki/Main_Page/

MiK
--
SeaMonkey - just suits me. :-)
https://www.seamonkey-project.org/

[Gunther Nikl]

Edmund Wong wrote:
> It is also not likely that we'd set the update system to use
> SSLv3 or TLSv1 (thanks to Heartbleed, Poodle, and whatever
> else) and set to a lower cypher set.

Despite the attacks listed I believe supporting TLSv1 with a very
limited cypher set should be possible. Even SM 1.1.x does support
ecdhe_ecdsa_aes and ecdhe_rsa_aes. Since these cyphers are enabled
by default supporting them with TLSv1 on the server should be fine.

Regards,
Gunther