misc/96711: 6.1-RC2 fails binary upgrade: chmod var/empty not allowed

[Martin Jackson]

>Number:         96711
>Category:       misc
>Synopsis:       6.1-RC2 fails binary upgrade: chmod var/empty not allowed
>Confidential:   no
>Severity:       serious
>Priority:       medium
>Responsible:    freebsd-bugs
>State:          open
>Quarter:        
>Keywords:       
>Date-Required:
>Class:          sw-bug
>Submitter-Id:   current-users
>Arrival-Date:   Wed May 03 12:20:18 GMT 2006
>Closed-Date:
>Last-Modified:
>Originator:     Martin Jackson
>Release:        6.1-RC2
>Organization:
>Environment:
6.1-RC2 Installer/GENERIC
>Description:
When doing a binary upgrade from various versions (I have directly observed this going from 6.0-RELEASE to 6.1-BETA4 and from 6.1-BETA4 to 6.1-RC2), the installer pukes while unpacking the base distribution, complaining that var/empty cannot be chmod'ed.  It definitely has the schg flag set; and if I use the holographic shell to remove that flag, and retry installation (which the installer prompts for) it will complete successfully.

I selected a custom distribution set, including:  base, kernels (GENERIC only), man, info, games, and doc.

I can work around the issue, but I would like to know if I'm doing something wrong or there is a bug in the installer.
>How-To-Repeat:
Select binary upgrade.  Pick the following distributions: base, kernel (GENERIC), doc, info, man, games.  The install should fail almost immediately with a write error.  The log VT should show a cpio/gzip error writing to var/empty
>Fix:
A workaround is to use the "holographic shell" on vt 4 to chflags noschg /var/empty.  Retrying the installation should succeed at that point.
>Release-Note:
>Audit-Trail:
>Unformatted: