Failure to add new files when updating jails with ezjail-admin

[Kirk Coombs]

It looks like a similar question may have been asked on this list some time ago (https://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-jail/2014-June/002577.html <https://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-jail/2014-June/002577.html>), but there were no replies. I am new to jails, so perhaps I am just doing something wrong.

I am running FreeBSD 10.3, with several jails built using ezjail-admin using the instructions at https://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/jails-ezjail.html <https://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/jails-ezjail.html>. I also enabled ZFS in ezjail.conf. The basejail was created from binaries using “ezjail-admin install,” and contains the sources (-s), man pages (-m), and a ports tree (-P).

I for a couple of patch releases, I have updated the basejail with binary updates using freebsd-update by executing “ezjail-admin update -u.” Each time, I have observed that it seems to update the existing files fine, but does not add the new files that are part of the update. For example, the update for 10.3-RELEASE-p13 updated many files, removed some files, and added several files.  However, "ezjail-admin update -u” does not appear to be able to add the new files into the basejail. For example, invocation "ezjail-admin update -u” to update to 10.3-RELEASE-p13 ended in some errors for adding the new files (sorry, I didn’t capture the output of that invocation). However, these errors are repeated with subsequent invocations of  "ezjail-admin update -u,” which is reproduced below:

$ sudo ezjail-admin update -u
Password:
Looking up update.FreeBSD.org mirrors... 4 mirrors found.
Fetching metadata signature for 10.3-RELEASE from update6.freebsd.org... done.
Fetching metadata index... done.
Inspecting system... done.
Preparing to download files... done.

No updates needed to update system to 10.3-RELEASE-p13.
No updates are available to install.
Run '/usr/sbin/freebsd-update fetch' first.
Looking up update.FreeBSD.org mirrors... 4 mirrors found.
Fetching metadata signature for 10.3-RELEASE from update5.freebsd.org... done.
Fetching metadata index... done.
Inspecting system... done.
Preparing to download files... done.

The following files will be added as part of updating to 10.3-RELEASE-p13:
/usr/share/zoneinfo/Asia/Barnaul
/usr/share/zoneinfo/Asia/Famagusta
/usr/share/zoneinfo/Asia/Tomsk
/usr/share/zoneinfo/Asia/Yangon
/usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Astrakhan
/usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Kirov
/usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Ulyanovsk
/usr/src/contrib/libarchive/libarchive/test/test_write_disk_secure744.c
/usr/src/contrib/libarchive/libarchive/test/test_write_disk_secure745.c
/usr/src/contrib/libarchive/libarchive/test/test_write_disk_secure746.c
/usr/src/contrib/ntp/README.pullrequests
/usr/src/contrib/ntp/lib/isc/tsmemcmp.c
/usr/src/contrib/ntp/scripts/build/genAuthors.in
/usr/src/contrib/ntp/sntp/m4/sntp_problemtests.m4
/usr/src/contrib/ntp/tests/libntp/run-tsafememcmp.c
/usr/src/contrib/ntp/tests/libntp/tsafememcmp.c
/usr/src/contrib/tzdata/CONTRIBUTING
/usr/src/contrib/tzdata/LICENSE
/usr/src/contrib/tzdata/Makefile
/usr/src/contrib/tzdata/NEWS
/usr/src/contrib/tzdata/README
/usr/src/contrib/tzdata/Theory
/usr/src/contrib/tzdata/backzone
/usr/src/contrib/tzdata/checklinks.awk
/usr/src/contrib/tzdata/checktab.awk
/usr/src/contrib/tzdata/leapseconds.awk
/usr/src/contrib/tzdata/version
/usr/src/contrib/tzdata/zoneinfo2tdf.pl

The following files will be updated as part of updating to 10.3-RELEASE-p13:
/var/db/mergemaster.mtree
Installing updates...mkdir: /usr/jails/newjail//boot: No such file or directory
mtree: /usr/jails/newjail//boot/kernel: No such file or directory
mtree: /usr/jails/newjail//boot/kernel.old: No such file or directory
touch: /usr/jails/newjail//boot/kernel.old/.freebsd-update: No such file or directory
Could not create kernel backup directory
$

The output is the same now matter how many times I invoke "ezjail-admin update -u,” so the new files are clearly not being inserted into the basejail.

Any suggestions?

—Kirk Coombs