src update without console access

[Per Engelbrecht]

Hi All
The company where I'm working, are selling FreeBSD (5.2.1) installations
in a dedicated serverhosting environment.
When updating 'src' customers are adviced to use "standard" procedure
i.e. cvsup.

The problem is that customers don't have console access while in
single-user mode ! (can't run installworld, mergemaster)
I've tested an upgrade from a running system (killing sendmail first, no
attached users) with poor result ..  'mergemaster -p' and 'mergemaster'
only found a diff in /etc/motd and 'uname -a' didn't show any system
changes after a reboot.

In obsd I'm used to run a "clean" cvs, building and installing from a
running system. I can't expect customers to go through that procedure so
I was hoping that any you guys could help me with a solution for the
customers?

I've bee searching the archives and found a lot of stuff on keeping fbsd
serverfarms up to date with PXE - very nice, but not an option.
(we have a large PXE setup running allready for new installations)

respectfully
/per
per at xterm.dk