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

On 4/24/26 01:09, Anton Shterenlikht wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 23, 2026 at 09:54:41AM -0700, Mark Millard wrote:
>> On 4/23/26 01:13, Anton Shterenlikht wrote:
>>> On Wed, Apr 22, 2026 at 10:18:39PM +0100, Lexi Winter wrote:
>>>> Anton Shterenlikht wrote in <aeh6ddAuDClL4YFn@cmplx.uk>:
>>>>> On Tue, Apr 21, 2026 at 12:52:43PM -0700, Mark Millard wrote:
>>>>>> On 4/21/26 08:52, Anton Shterenlikht wrote:
>>>>>>> On Tue, Apr 07, 2026 at 12:30:50PM +0100, Lexi Winter 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?
>>>>> 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?
>>>>  
>>>> no, something has gone wrong here.
>>>>
>>>> how did you install this system?
>>>>
>>>> /etc/master.passwd is in the FreeBSD-runtime package, which must always
>>>> be installed on a pkgbase system.  the only reason 'pkg upgrade' would
>>>> overwrite it with a pristine copy is if you somehow didn't have that
>>>> package installed, but if that was the case, the system would already
>>>> be completely non-functional.
>>>>
>>>> the only way i can imagine this happening if you had a non-pkgbase
>>>> system, then installed FreeBSD-runtime (e.g., as a dependency of
>>>> FreeBSD-set-minimal), but this should not be possible in a normal
>>>> non-pkgbase installation since the FreeBSD-base repository won't
>>>> be enabled.
>>>
>>> I admit I got a bit complacent... doing major and minor
>>> updates with freebsd-update for years about any issue,
>>> that I stopped reading UPDATING, and such.
>>> So all this is my fault probably.
>>>
>>> I used freebsd-update to upgrade from some 14.4 to 15.0.
>>
>> So 14.* was never in pkgbase form?
> 
> correct
> 
>>
>>>
>>> Once on 15.0, when updating ports, I noticed some differences,
>>> read some posts, and found out about pkgbase.
>>
>> So the conversion to pkgbase started from a pnon-pkgbase 15.0 to produce
>> a pkgbase 15.0?
> 
> Not sure, maybe I never converted.
> What does it mean to have a "pkgbase" system?

It seems that you have some sort of partial update to pkgbase.

What do the following show:

# pkg -v

# pkg repos -d

# pkg repos -e

# pkg info FreeBSD-\*

That last could produce over 500 lines.

> How can I check?
> 
> BTW, I noticed that my versions diverged somehow:
> 
> # freebsd-version -kru
> 15.0-RELEASE-p4
> 15.0-RELEASE-p4
> 15.0-RELEASE-p6

This is what happens when one of the following is true:

) only the world had updates available, the kernel had no changes
) there were kernel updates that were not applied

> 
>>
>> Did you use https://github.com/FreeBSDFoundation/pkgbasify to do the
>> conversion (no matter which FreeBSD version was the starting point)?
> 
> no
> 
> Does this mean my system is *not* a pkgbase system?

You appear to have at least some pkgbase packages installed, but
possibly not an appropriate set of them.

> I.e. one must use pkgbasify, as per
>   https://wiki.freebsd.org/action/show/pkgbase
> to convert an non-pkgbase 15.0 to a pkgbase 15.0?

For your conversion . . .

Did you try to follow the steps of the "Manual initial setup", despite
them being older than covering conversion for 15.0?

Did you instead try one of the U[pgrades proedures (Minor vs. Major?)?
"13 to 14"? "Building'?

> 
> I assumed that all I need is /etc/pkg/FreeBSD.conf
> with ports, ports-kmods and FreeBSD-base.

You had to use something that involved actual pkg commands in order to
have the .pkgsave files generated. Merely having the configuration
file(s) present would not cause that.

> 
> Time to rtfm I guess...
> 
> Thank you 
> 
> Anton
> 
> 


-- 
===
Mark Millard
marklmi at yahoo.com