Re: [HEADS UP] stable/15: new base packages for PAM, zstd

On Wed, Apr 22, 2026 at 05:47:09AM -0700, Mark Millard wrote:
> On 4/22/26 00:36, Anton Shterenlikht wrote:
> > On Tue, Apr 21, 2026 at 12:52:43PM -0700, Mark Millard wrote:
> >>>
> >>> I recently upgraded Lenovo T480 laptop from some 14.x relase to 15.0-RELEASE-p4.
> >>> I'm still figuring out the use of pkg for base upgrades.
> >>>
> >>> For a few weeks all was working more or less well (some unexpected
> >>> reboots, but I had no time to dig into that).
> >>>
> >>> After reading your mail, I typed the pkg query command you suggested,
> >>> which returned nothing.
> >>> I then did "pkg install FreeBSD-set-minimal".
> >>> When that completed, I realised that my user is gone....
> >>>
> >>> Looking at /etc/passwd and /etc/master.passwd I see that indeed
> >>> my user is not there anymore.
> >>
> >> Did you end up with the likes of:
> >>
> >> /etc/passwd.pkgsave
> >> /etc/master.passwd.pkgsave
> > 
> > Yes, I have /etc/master.passwd.pkgsave
> > 
> > So what happened?
> 
> After pkgbase updates, one should always scan for *.pkgsave and *.pkgnew
> files (say via find) and then deal with possibly
> merging/updating/restoring the content --or possibly just deleting the
> *.pkgsave/*.pkgnew  file, as appropriate based on the content.
> 
> > Is it expected that "pkg install FreeBSD-set-minimal"
> > should erase all ordinary users from /etc/master.passwd
> > and save the original file as /etc/master.passwd.pkgsave?
> > 
> > Was I wrong to do "pkg install FreeBSD-set-minimal" on 15.0-RELEASE-p4?
> > 
> > Shall I just copy the /etc/master.passwd.pkgsave back to /etc/master.passwd?
> 
> 
> Do not forget to do something like:
> 
> # pwd_mkdb -p /etc/master.passwd.pkgsave
> 
> That would regenerate /etc/spwd.db (secure database) , /etc/pwd.db
> (insecure database), and /etc/master.passwd --and the -p means it would
> also regenerate a matching /etc/passwd as well.
> 
> Once you know the password related files are okay, you may want to
> delete /etc/master.passwd.pkgsave .
> 
> 
> You should also check if this pkgbase update or prior ones left any
> other *.pkgsave or *.pkgnew files for you do deal with for finishing the
> file updates involved. pkgbase does not deal with picking how some
> configuration file updates should be done.

Mark, thank you.

I missed that this is documented in:
https://wiki.freebsd.org/action/show/pkgbase?action=show&redirect=PkgBase#A.pkgsave_files

Anton