Re: "etcupdate extract" -- Failed to build new tree.

W dniu 28.10.2025 o 14:37, Thomas Schweikle pisze:
>
>
> On Tue, Oct 28, 2025 at 1:35 PM Dag-Erling Smørgrav <des@freebsd.org> 
> wrote:
>
>     Thomas Schweikle <tschweikle@gmail.com> writes:
>     > Dag-Erling Smørgrav <des@freebsd.org> writes:
>     > > Thomas Schweikle <tschweikle@gmail.com> writes:
>     > > > Dag-Erling Smørgrav <des@freebsd.org> writes:
>     > > > > How was this system installed?
>     > > > By compiling 15-STABLE from latest available 14.3 getting
>     sources via
>     > > How did you install 14.3?
>     > Same way. It was Upgraded from 13-STABLE. And this was upgraded from
>     > 12-STABLE. If I remember it right, the system installed from
>     > disquettes was 5.0-RELEASE some way back in time ...
>
>     Do you understand the difference between the words “install” and
>     “upgrade”?
>
>     What did you use prior to etcupdate?  When was /etc last updated?
>
> The last time mergemaster was available. Later on it was done 
> manually, since etcupdate did not work.
>
> My findings: etcupdate just does not work, because right after cloning 
> etc is not in a working state. It is, after running
>
> make _legacy
>
> in "/usr/src". Then it runs
>
> etcupdate extract
> etcupdate diff
>
> without this "Failed to build new tree.", but it then fails run
>
> etcupdate -p
>
> right after building world, kernel and installkernel, exhausting: "No 
> previous tree to compare against, a sane comparison is not possible." 
> just because there is no tree to compare against, or better: 
> "etcupdate extract" created an empty tree without any files within.It 
> is just "make _legacy" creates all the folders, etcupdate expects, but 
> not the files. It seems all those advices given within the handbook or 
> at various places within the internet all give it the wrong way:
>
> clone
> ettupdate extract
> etcupdate diff
> make buildworld
> make buildkernel
> make installkernel
> etcupdate -p
> reboot
> make installworld
> etcupdate -B
> reboot
>
> But
>
> clone
> make buildworld
> make buildkernel
> etcupdate extract
> etcupdate diff
> make installkernel
> etcupdate -p
> make installworld
> etcupdate -B
> reboot
>
> because you will never have a working etc before building world and 
> kernel. And in tune you'd never will have anything you could extract. 
> You are assuming something to extract, but there isn't anything before 
> building. mergemaster did get this right (comparing the fresh build 
> /usr/src etc against /etc). etcupdate does not -- at least if it is 
> used the way the handbook advises. It would only work this way, if you 
> did not clone the working tree right fresh into an empty directory (or 
> after "git reset hard" -- removing anything from /usr/src what was 
> created after the last "git pull" simulating "git clone" as far as 
> possible).
>
> -- 
> Thomas

Hello Thomas,

that’s splendid - it’s impressive that you’ve managed to upgrade FreeBSD 
from version 5.0! FreeBSD truly is an amazing operating system; being 
able to upgrade continuously for 25+ years without ever needing to 
reinstall is a real achievement. Well done; my oldest installations that 
are still being upgraded date back only to the FreeBSD 6.x era.

Anyway, it’s time to say goodbye to mergemaster  - you won’t regret it. 
The FreeBSD Handbook covers this transition in detail [1]. To perform 
the upgrade correctly, you should run mergemaster(8) for the last time 
under FreeBSD 14, and before rebooting, you’ll also need to run 
etcupdate(8) too.

Here’s the sequence that worked for me many times in recent weeks:

# make buildworld
# make buildkernel
# mergemaster
# etcupdate extract
# etcupdate diff
# etcupdate -B
# make installkernel
# make installworld
# reboot
# pkg upgrade
# make delete-old
# make delete-old-libs
bootloader upgrade
# zpool upgrade
# reboot

It’s a bit risky and not entirely in line with the Handbook to skip the 
first reboot, but if you’re upgrading from a relatively recent 
14.3-STABLE and your root filesystem is on ZFS, you can create a backup 
Boot Environment (BE) as a safeguard in case something goes wrong.
Even better, you can create a testing BE and perform the installation 
into that BE after mounting it by using DESTDIR. Just remember that both 
mergemaster and etcupdate must also be executed with respect to this 
DESTDIR path.

If you’ve used etcupdate in the past and weren’t satisfied with its 
behavior, and therefore continued using mergemaster, I recommend 
cleaning the cruft by running the following command before starting the 
final transition to etcupdate:

# rm -rf /var/db/etcupdate/


1. 
https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/handbook/cutting-edge/#updating-src-quick-start

Cheers
Marek