Backporting
Backporting is the action of taking parts from a newer
Overview
The simplest and probably most common situation of backporting is a fixed security hole in a newer version of a piece of software. Consider this simplified example:
- Software v2.0 had a security vulnerabilitythat is fixed by changing the text 'is_unsecured' to 'is_secured'.
- The same security hole exists in Software v1.0, from which the codebase for the newer version is derived, but there the text may read 'is_notsecure'.
By taking the modification that fixes Software v2.0 and changing it so that it applies to Software v1.0, one has effectively backported the fix.[1]
In real-life situations, the modifications that a single aspect of the software has undergone may be simple (only a few lines of code have changed) up to heavy and massive (many modifications spread across multiple files of the code). In the latter case, backporting may become tedious and inefficient and should only be undertaken
if the older version of the software is really needed in favour of the newer (if, for example, the newer version still suffers stability problems that prevent its use in mission-critical situations).[2]
Procedures
The process of backporting can be roughly divided into these steps:[1]
- identification of the problem in the older version of the software that needs to be fixed by a backport
- finding out which (usually recent) modification of the code fixed the problem
- adapting the modification to the old code situation (the proper backporting)
- one or several levels of quality control – testing whether the backported version maintains previous functionality as well as if it properly implements the new functionality.
Usually, multiple such modifications are bundled in a patch set.
Backports can be provided by the core
Examples
Many features of Windows Vista were backported to Windows XP when Service Pack 3 was released for Windows XP, thereby facilitating compatibility of applications (mostly games) originally with Vista as a minimum requirement to run on XP SP3 as a minimum requirement instead.[3] The
See also
References
- ^ a b "Backporting Security Fixes". Red Hat. Retrieved 2020-05-11.
- ^ a b Rahul Sundaram (2016-01-14). "Staying close to upstream projects". Fedora Project. Retrieved 2020-05-11.
- ^ Donald Melanson (2007-10-09). "Microsoft backports Vista features for new Windows XP SP3 beta". Engadget. Retrieved 2020-05-11.
- Debian Project. 2010-09-05. Retrieved 2020-05-11.
- Ubuntu Project. 2015-11-29. Retrieved 2020-05-11.