CVSup questions

[Giorgos Keramidas]

On 2004-11-23 19:58, Jay O'Brien <jayobrien at att.net> wrote:
>
> I'm attempting to follow "Using CVSup" and learn how CVSup works.
> See: http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/cvsup.html
>
> Questions about CVSup:
>
> 1. Where should I place supfile?

Practically, anywhere you want.  I keep mine in `/etc/supfile'.

The rationale behind the choise of /etc as the directory to save the
supfile is that I consider the supfile a part of the system's setup
and configuration options.  These usually live under /etc. QED

> Obviously I could put it anywhere and make it work, but is there a
> usual place for it? I can't find where the manual makes a
> suggestion.

The manual makes no suggestion.  A supfile is a simple text file that
you can put anywhere you want.  In `/root/supfile', `/etc/mysupfile',
`/opt/cvsup/freebsd/current/supfile/src.sup' or whatever.  The CVSup
program doesn't care much about the _path_ of the supfile, as long as
it is readable.

> Do I have a need for more than one supfile?

That depends on what you want to update.  If you want to update many
different collections of files (i.e. the ports, the src tree, the
sources of the documentation, etc.), you may find it easier to create
one supfile for each collection of files being updated.  It's less of
an administrative PITA this way.

> 2. I am running 5.3 RELEASE. It appears that if I specify
> "*default tag=." that I will be getting updates from "current".

Correct.

> Is this what I should do, given that I want to stay current on
> security and bug fixes, but I don't (at this time) intend to get
> involved with beta testing?

No.

See the Handbook section ``FreeBSD-CURRENT vs. FreeBSD-STABLE'' at
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/current-stable.html
for details.

> Or should I specify *default tag=RELENG_5_3?

Yes.  This would pull in only the 5.3-RELEASE sources and any security
fixes or other updates that are deemed critical enough for backporting
to the `security branch' of 5.3-RELEASE (the RELENG_5_3 branch).

> And, if I do that, will the ports be updated, including adding new
> ports?

No.  The Ports do not have security branches.
There is only one ports/ tree.

> 3. The tutorial at http://www.us-webmasters.com/FreeBSD/Install/
> after item 68 describes CVSup. It suggests using the supfile
> /usr/share/examples/cvsup/ports-supfile which gets the "ports-all"
> collection. However, the Using CVSup manual says to get "src-all",
> that includes ports-all. Is there some reason to use ports-all, not
> src-all as suggested by the handbook?

Each collection pulls in a different set of files.  The ports-all
collection updates the files of the Ports collection, usually located
under `/usr/ports'.  The src-all collection updates `/usr/src', where
the base-system sources live.

> 4. The tutorial (see 3 above) item 97 concludes, after running
> cvsup, "FreeBSD is installed, CONGRATULATIONS!"

Poor wording.  It should probably say ``If you reached this point and
everything has worked correctly so far, congratulations!  Your source
trees have been updated.  You may now proceed by building the system
from source as described in `_Rebuilding world_'.''

> Isn't this a bit premature?  It seems to me that at that point I
> need to rebuild world per
> http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/book.html#MAKEWORLD
> to apply the new files and bring the system up to date.
> Am I missing something?

Correct.

- Giorgos