bin/186273: freebsd-update never ends asking for update

[Mathieu at aragorn.in.absolight.net]

>Number:         186273
>Category:       bin
>Synopsis:       freebsd-update never ends asking for update
>Confidential:   no
>Severity:       non-critical
>Priority:       medium
>Responsible:    freebsd-bugs
>State:          open
>Quarter:        
>Keywords:       
>Date-Required:
>Class:          sw-bug
>Submitter-Id:   current-users
>Arrival-Date:   Thu Jan 30 12:50:00 UTC 2014
>Closed-Date:
>Last-Modified:
>Originator:     Mathieu Arnold
>Release:        FreeBSD 9.1-RELEASE amd64
>Organization:
Absolight
>Environment:
System: FreeBSD cegereal.absolight.com 9.1-RELEASE FreeBSD 9.1-RELEASE #0 r243825: Tue Dec 4 09:23:10 UTC 2012 root at farrell.cse.buffalo.edu:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/GENERIC amd64

>Description:

On FreeBSD 9, if an update ever touches the kernel, it gets shipped
with /boot/kernel/linker.hints freebsd-update installs that file, and
then notices something changed in /boot/kernel, run kldxref,
overwrites the file it just installed. The next time it runs, it
thinks that the file has been missed by the update and updates it,
overwrites it, and it can go on forever.

>How-To-Repeat:
# freebsd-update fetch
Looking up freebsd-update.absolight.net mirrors... 1 mirrors found.
Fetching public key from 1.freebsd-update.absolight.net... done.
Fetching metadata signature for 9.1-RELEASE from 1.freebsd-update.absolight.net... done.
Fetching metadata index... done.
Fetching 2 metadata files... done.
Inspecting system... done.
Preparing to download files... done.
Fetching 1 files... done.

The following files will be updated as part of updating to 9.1-RELEASE-p10:
/boot/kernel/linker.hints
# freebsd-update install
Installing updates... done.
# freebsd-update fetch
Looking up freebsd-update.absolight.net mirrors... 1 mirrors found.
Fetching metadata signature for 9.1-RELEASE from 1.freebsd-update.absolight.net... done.
Fetching metadata index... done.
Inspecting system... done.
Preparing to download files... done.

The following files will be updated as part of updating to 9.1-RELEASE-p10:
/boot/kernel/linker.hints
# freebsd-update install
Installing updates... done.
# freebsd-update fetch
Looking up freebsd-update.absolight.net mirrors... 1 mirrors found.
Fetching metadata signature for 9.1-RELEASE from 1.freebsd-update.absolight.net... done.
Fetching metadata index... done.
Inspecting system... done.
Preparing to download files... done.

The following files will be updated as part of updating to 9.1-RELEASE-p10:
/boot/kernel/linker.hints
>Fix:

The only fix I have found is to remove the file altogether, it stops
freebsd-update from trying to reinstall it and overwrite it.
>Release-Note:
>Audit-Trail:
>Unformatted: