Plugins - Include the version number of the main software the plugin is based on

[upended]

Important notices

Before you add a new report, we ask you kindly to acknowledge the following:

• I have read the contributing guide lines at https://github.com/opnsense/core/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md
• I am convinced that my issue is new after having checked both open and closed issues at https://github.com/opnsense/core/issues?q=is%3Aissue

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

Currently plugins have a version number that is used to identify which iteration the plugin is itself. However, there is no easy way to identify what is the version of the base package the version is based off of, that is what package was downloaded by the maintainer, modified, and uploaded to this repository. An example, os-nginx. The latest plugin is listed as 1.34 but the nginx website is listed as 1.26.1 stable and 1.27.0 main. I understand the changelog has the version number included. However, they are the change logs for the maintainer and not the base software.

Describe the solution you like

For all plugins, require the inclusion of the name of the software package (as shown above there are 2 possibilities), and more importantly the version number of the base software.

The purpose of this is to understand what version the firewall administrator is using as many of the packages used have settings. Which are version specific and the packages may be at an much newer release than what is available on the firewall.

I have see where the package being maintained was over a full major version behind. This is not to say the maintainers for opnsense are this way. It is to show that the documentation and settings being reviewed by the administrators will not work, or may not work correctly as it is not the correct version.

Also, some of the opnsense documentation for the plugins is short and points administrators to the software website for further information / configurations, etc.

Using the example above,
OS-nginx maintainer version 1.34 base version 1.26.1

Describe alternatives you considered

There are currently no alternatives.

Additional context

None

[fichtner]

Maintainers and users are free to document version changes in pkg-descr changelog. But the reality is most plugins aren't updated as much as upstream software is so you don't have a lot of wiggle-room for "attaching" a version change.

Before it comes up: as this isn't core territory no other efforts will be made to document third party software changes.

Cheers,
Franco

[upended]

I would like to contribute as you have pointed out "Maintainers and users are free to document version changes in pkg-descr changelog." How could I find out what the latest version the maintainer is using in order to document. I am in I.T. however, do not know what or how git operates in order to support this process. Could you recommend some material I could view and be in a better position to help?

[OPNsense-bot]

This issue has been automatically timed-out (after 180 days of inactivity).

For more information about the policies for this repository,
please read https://github.com/opnsense/plugins/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md for further details.

If someone wants to step up and work on this issue,
just let us know, so we can reopen the issue and assign an owner to it.