too late to change to security branch?

[Beech Rintoul]

On Wednesday 26 September 2007, Bill Stwalley said:
> I have servers running 6.1 and 6.2.  I use freebsd-update in cron
> jobs to install binary security update to the base system, and use
> cvsup/portupgrade in cron jobs to install port updates.  By
> default, cvsup uses CURRENT branch.
>
> I am tired of some updates breaking something unnecessarily, and am
> thinking of changing to SECURITY branch in cvsup.  Is that
> possible?  Some of my ports are already locally compiled with
> customized options.
>
> If that's impossible, can I wait until the release of 6.3,
> upgrading to it, and then switch to SECURITY branch in cvsup?
>
> If those are entirely impossible, can I switch to STABLE branch?
>
> I'm confused by this system, please let me know if anything I do
> doesn't make sense.
>
> Best, Bill

There are no other branches of ports except current. The release, 
security, stable and current branches only apply to the system 
itself. The exception being the ports that come with a release are 
just a snapshot of the ports tree at the time the release was rolled. 
While we try our best to avoid breakage, it sometimes happens. My 
suggestion is that if you plan on upgrading something mission 
critical, you might want to try the upgrade on another similar box 
first and test. As for compiling with options not already available 
in the port itself, you are basically on your own. If there is a 
particular option that comes with the sources, but is not a port 
option contact the maintainer of that port. As for doing port updates 
with a cron script it's not recommended. You should always read 
UPDATING before installing anything. Believe me it will save you foot 
shooting.

Beech

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Beech Rintoul - FreeBSD Developer - beech at FreeBSD.org
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