last 2 major releases of libwurfl included a complete review of engine options with
the result of deprecating many features. The patch removes unecessary code and fixes
the documentation.
Can be backported on any version of haproxy.
[wt: must not be backported since it removes config keywords and would
thus break existing configurations]
Signed-off-by: Willy Tarreau <w@1wt.eu>
Since the "wurfl" device detection engine was merged slightly more than
two years ago (2016-11-04), it never received a single fix nor update.
For almost two years it didn't receive even the minimal review or changes
needed to be compatible with threads, and it's remained build-broken for
about the last 9 months, consecutive to the last buffer API changes,
without anyone ever noticing! When asked on the list, nobody confirmed
using it :
https://www.mail-archive.com/haproxy@formilux.org/msg32516.html
And obviously nobody even cared to verify that it did still build. So we
are left with this broken code with no user and no maintainer. It might
even suffer from remotely exploitable vulnerabilities without anyone
being able to check if it presents any risk. It's a pain to update each
time there is an API change because it doesn't build as it depends on
external libraries that are not publicly accessible, leading to careful
blind changes. It slows down the whole project. This situation is not
acceptable at all.
It's time to cure the problem where it is. This patch removes all this
dead, non-buildable, non-working code. If anyone ever decides to use it,
which I seriously doubt based on history, it could be reintegrated, but
this time the following guarantees will be required :
- someone has to step up as a maintainer and have his name listed in
the MAINTAINERS file (I should have been more careful last time).
This person will take the sole blame for all issues and will be
responsible for fixing the bugs and incompatibilities affecting
this code, and for making it evolve to follow regular internal API
updates.
- support building on a standard distro with automated tools (i.e. no
more "click on this site, register your e-mail and download an
archive then figure how to place this into your build system").
Dummy libs are OK though as long as they allow the mainline code to
build and start.
- multi-threaded support must be fixed. I mean seriously, not worked
around with a check saying "please disable threads, we've been busy
fishing for the last two years".
This may be backported to 1.9 given that the code has never worked there
either, thus at least we're certain nobody will miss it.
WURFL is a high-performance and low-memory footprint mobile device
detection software component that can quickly and accurately detect
over 500 capabilities of visiting devices. It can differentiate between
portable mobile devices, desktop devices, SmartTVs and any other types
of devices on which a web browser can be installed.
In order to add WURFL device detection support, you would need to
download Scientiamobile InFuze C API and install it on your system.
Refer to www.scientiamobile.com to obtain a valid InFuze license.
Any useful information on how to configure HAProxy working with WURFL
may be found in:
doc/WURFL-device-detection.txt
doc/configuration.txt
examples/wurfl-example.cfg
Please find more information about WURFL device detection API detection
at https://docs.scientiamobile.com/documentation/infuze/infuze-c-api-user-guide
Ilya Shipitsin
paulborile
Willy Tarreau
scientiamobile