docs/152167: portmaster(8) is a bit trigger-happy about clearing out /usr/local/ when rebuilding all ports

[Ben Grimm]

>Number:         152167
>Category:       docs
>Synopsis:       portmaster(8) is a bit trigger-happy about clearing out /usr/local/ when rebuilding all ports
>Confidential:   no
>Severity:       non-critical
>Priority:       low
>Responsible:    freebsd-doc
>State:          open
>Quarter:        
>Keywords:       
>Date-Required:
>Class:          doc-bug
>Submitter-Id:   current-users
>Arrival-Date:   Fri Nov 12 14:30:12 UTC 2010
>Closed-Date:
>Last-Modified:
>Originator:     Ben Grimm
>Release:        FreeBSD 8.1-STABLE
>Organization:
>Environment:
FreeBSD box 8.1-STABLE FreeBSD 8.1-STABLE #0 r215085: Wed Nov 10 13:29:39 CET 2010     toor at box:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/BM64  amd64

>Description:
man portmaster | less +/"Using portmaster to do a complete reinstallation"

Step 8:
           8. Manually check /usr/local and /var/db/pkg
              to make sure that they are really empty

Some people may take this a bit too literally and actually nuke /usr/local/ without taking into account that there may be some very important files that reside there, e.g.:

a) customised configuration files in /usr/local/etc/ (e.g. dovecot.conf, openvpn.conf, etc.)
b) the DocumentRoot of one or more websites under /usr/local/www/ and/or /usr/local/apache22/ and or /usr/local/www/data/, etc.

There may be other directories with 'payload' there. I think the man page should warn about the possible presence of such customisations. (I know: one should have backups at all times", but still ..)
>How-To-Repeat:

>Fix:
Add some caution or reserve to the statement that /usr/local needs to be empty.

>Release-Note:
>Audit-Trail:
>Unformatted: