Version Checking¶

Some Percona software contains “version checking” functionality which is a feature that enables Percona software users to be notified of available software updates to improve your environment security and performance. Alongside this, the version check functionality also provides Percona with information relating to which software versions you are running, coupled with the environment confirmation which the software is running within. This helps enable Percona to focus our development effort accordingly based on trends within our customer community.

The purpose of this document is to articulate the information that is collected, as well as to provide guidance on how to disable this functionality if desired.

Usage¶

Version Check was implemented in Percona Toolkit 2.1.4, and was enabled by default in version 2.2.1. Currently it is supported as a --[no]version-check option by a number of tools in Percona Toolkit, Percona XtraBackup, and Percona Monitoring and Management (PMM).

When launched with Version Check enabled, the tool that supports this feature connects to a Percona’s version check service via a secure HTTPS channel. It compares the locally installed version for possible updates, and also checks versions of the following software:

Operating System
Percona Monitoring and Management (PMM)
MySQL
Perl
MySQL driver for Perl (DBD::mysql)
Percona Toolkit

Then it checks for and warns about versions with known problems if they are identified as running in the environment.

Each version check request is logged by the server. Stored information consists of the checked system unique ID followed by the software name and version. The ID is generated either at installation or when the version checking query is submitted for the first time.

Note

Prior to version 3.0.7 of Percona Toolkit, the system ID was calculated as an MD5 hash of a hostname, and starting from Percona Toolkit 3.0.7 it is generated as an MD5 hash of a random number. Percona XtraBackup continues to use hostname-based MD5 hash.

As a result, the content of the sent query is as follows:

85624f3fb5d2af8816178ea1493ed41a;DBD::mysql;4.044
c2b6d625ef3409164cbf8af4985c48d3;MySQL;MySQL Community Server (GPL) 5.7.22-log
85624f3fb5d2af8816178ea1493ed41a;OS;Manjaro Linux
85624f3fb5d2af8816178ea1493ed41a;Percona::Toolkit;3.0.11-dev
85624f3fb5d2af8816178ea1493ed41a;Perl;5.26.2

Disabling Version Check¶

Although the version checking feature does not collect any personal information, you might prefer to disable this feature, either one time or permanently. To disable it one time, use --no-version-check option when invoking the tool from a Percona product which supports it. Here is a simple example which shows running pt-diskstats tool from the Percona Toolkit with version checking turned off:

pt-diskstats --no-version-check

Disabling version checking permanently can be done by placing no-version-check option into the configuration file of a Percona product (see correspondent documentation for exact file name and syntax). For example, in case of Percona Toolkit this can be done in a global configuration file /etc/percona-toolkit/percona-toolkit.conf:

# Disable Version Check for all tools:
no-version-check

In case of Percona XtraBackup this can be done in its configuration file in a similar way:

[xtrabackup]
no-version-check

Frequently Asked Questions¶

Why is this functionality enabled by default?¶

We believe having this functionality enabled improves security and performance of environments running Percona Software and it is good choice for majority of the users.

Why not rely on Operating System’s built in functionality for software updates?¶

In many environments the Operating Systems repositories may not carry the latest version of software and newer versions of software often installed manually, so not being covered by operating system wide check for updates.

Why do you send more information than just the version of software being run as a part of version check service?¶

Compatibility problems can be caused by versions of various components in the environment, for example problematic versions of Perl, DBD or MySQL could cause operational problems with Percona Toolkit.

Contact us

For free technical help, visit the Percona Community Forum.

To report bugs or submit feature requests, open a JIRA ticket.

For paid support and managed or consulting services , contact Percona Sales.

Last update: 2022-12-06