[Freeipa-users] The -e skip_version_check=1 with 4.2 client against 6.4-based server

[Martin Basti]

On 11.01.2016 16:57, Jan Pazdziora wrote:
> Hello,
>
> we have IPA client on
>
> 	[root at centos72-20160110 ~]# cat /etc/redhat-release
> 	CentOS Linux release 7.2.1511 (Core)
>
> with the following packages:
>
> 	[root at centos72-20160110 ~]# rpm -qf
> 	/usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/ipapython/version.py
> 	ipa-python-4.2.0-15.el7.centos.3.x86_64
> 	[root at centos72-20160110 ~]# rpm -qf /usr/bin/ipa
> 	ipa-admintools-4.2.0-15.el7.centos.3.x86_64
>
> We try to call the ipa commands against old FreeIPA server version,
> taking advantage of the
>
> 	-e skip_version_check=1
>
> option added by
>
> 	https://fedorahosted.org/freeipa/ticket/4768
>
>
> [root at centos72-20160110 ~]# /usr/bin/ipa user-find
> ipa: ERROR: 2.156 client incompatible with 2.49 server at u'https://aab-ipaserver.example.com/ipa/xml'
>
> [root at centos72-20160110 ~]# /usr/bin/ipa -e skip_version_check=1 user-find
> ipa: ERROR: 2.51 client incompatible with 2.49 server at u'https://aab-ipaserver.example.com/ipa/xml'
>
> Alas, it seems that skip_version_check=1 sets the version to 2.51
> which is still too new to the 2.49 version of the 6.4 based-server
> with ipa-server-3.0.0-42.el6.x86_64.
>
> Is this behaviour expected? Why does it force a particular value (2.51)
> rather than ignoring the difference altogether?
>
> I have verified that the option works on Fedora client against older
> Fedora server (but I did not try ipa-server-3.0.0 there).
>
With API version 2.52 IPA started to use capabilities, which allows us 
to handle changes in API in compatible way. So only with version 2.51 
(last version without capabilities) we can guarantee that it will work. 
Server may not work with older API version than 2.51, because changes in 
API may be incompatible.