Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

Kevin Oberman kob6558 at gmail.com
Thu May 31 22:38:45 UTC 2012


On Thu, May 31, 2012 at 6:35 AM, Damien Fleuriot <ml at my.gd> wrote:
>
>
> On 5/31/12 1:20 PM, Claus Guttesen wrote:
>>>>> A regular debian update is 5 minutes + reboot
>>>>> A regular FBSD update is about 1.5 hour + 3 reboots (after
>>>>> installkernel, installworld, rebuild of ports)
>>>>
>>>> But how often do you need to
>>>
>>> As a matter of fact, too often, that's te problem.
>>>
>>> We have > 800 servers and I can't argue that debian's update process is much simpler and faster.
>>
>> Take a look at freebsd-update:
>> http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/updating-upgrading-freebsdupdate.html.
>> This tracks release.
>>
>
> As I just replied to an off-list mail, we can't use binary upgrades because:
>
>
> 1/ we use custom kernels with a lot of the stuff stripped
>
> 2/ we pass custom options to ports, which excludes pre-compiled packages
>
> 3/ we don't track release, I'm trying to move our boxes away from it so
> we can get faster patches, we track 8-STABLE on most boxes

Make your own freebsd-update server and build whatever custom system
you need. It does not need to be a GENERIC kernel. It does not need to
be RELEASE.Then use freebsd-update to update all of your production
systems with a single reboot and about 15 minutes (depending on system
and disk speed and I have not actually timed it).and it can be done
without console access or a single-user boot.

Caveats: Systems must be updated from a version the server knows to a
version the server knows; both kernel and world. Major version bumps
may require re-installation of ports. Security ports and minor updates
are trivial.

Grenada?
-- 
R. Kevin Oberman, Network Engineer
E-mail: kob6558 at gmail.com


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