Re: [pbs-devel] [PATCH proxmox-backup 1/3] fix #4315: jobs: modify GroupFilter so include/exclude is tracked

[Philipp Hufnagl <p.hufnagl@proxmox.com>]

On 10/24/23 11:18, Lukas Wagner wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Also, some higher-level comments:
> 
> The include/exclude behavior seems not super intuitive to me, as it
> appears that the behavior depends on the order of the group-filter
> config entries - e.g. "include all VMs" followed by "exclude VM 190"
> has a different behavior than the other way round. In the GUI this is
> not super obvious, and also there is no way to reorder the matching
> rules.
> 
> I would probably do it this way:
> 
> no group-filters defined -> everything is included
> only including filter    -> only groups matching the filter(s) are
>                             included
> only excluding filter    -> all groups but the matching ones are
>                             included

I am not 100% sure how I feel about including all as a starting point
for exclusion filter. While I understand the intuitive benefit, it
also may make the process more error prone, since removing 1 include
filter may change everything to include all. User might not think of that.

> including and excluding  -> first compute included groups, then subtract
>                             excluded ones
> 
I considered this. The reason why I decided for only one list is
because it enables user to make more sophisticated rules more easily.

Having 2 lists that get processed after each other can make it much
harder to filter on a complex setup.

> Ideally, this behavior should be
>   a.) obvious in the GUI
>   b.) documented in the docs, with a few concrete examples
> 
I see what I can do about explaining this behaviour better in the GUI
and how to extend the documentation.