7.2-p7 -> 8-STABLE mergemaster core dump

[Tom Evans]

On Wed, Mar 17, 2010 at 2:25 PM, Cristiano Deana
<cristiano.deana at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> anyone else tried to update (todas's cvsup) 7.3-p7 to 8-STABLE?
>
> make update
> make buildworld && make kernel && make installworld
> mergemaster
> and i got a "bad system call (core dumped)".
>
> reboot, mergemaster again and it was allright.
>
> i use freebsd from 3.3 (maybe) and this is the first time i had to
> reboot with new kernel/world to make a mergemaster (very dangerous, i
> was remote).
>
> anyone else?
>

You can't always run new userland on an old kernel, but you can always
run old userland on a new kernel, which is why the process you went
through is not the canonical way. See the handbook or
/usr/src/UPDATING:

    To rebuild everything and install it on the current system.
    -----------------------------------------------------------
    # Note: sometimes if you are running current you gotta do more than
    # is listed here if you are upgrading from a really old current.

    <make sure you have good level 0 dumps>
    make buildworld
    make kernel KERNCONF=YOUR_KERNEL_HERE
                            [1]
    <reboot in single user>             [3]
    mergemaster -p                  [5]
    make installworld
    make delete-old
    mergemaster                 [4]
    <reboot>

Cheers

Tom