Wisdom of automating upgrades

[Vince Hoffman]

On Tue, 8 Jun 2004, Peter Risdon wrote:

> The main cost of having computers for most companies lies not in
> software or hardware, but in support. I have been pondering the wisdom
> of automating the upgrade process, so that sources are cvsup'ed nightly
> and make buildworld buildkernel etc and portupgrade happen overnight
> maybe once a week or month - and perhaps every day a security fix is
> announced.
>
> Windows and Mac users are accustomed to automatic software updates on
> server products as well as desktops, so there is a competitive issue
> here. I've persuaded a number of companies to switch to FreeBSD and want
> to ensure the commercial logic of doing so is as complete as possible.
>
> cvsup'ing overnight is routine and fine.
>
> The make build/install stuff seems a bit more delicate. I'm happy that I
> have figured out how to automate this, but not _whether_ I should do so.
> I am of course only considering tracking RELENG_4 at this stage.
>
> Ports are perhaps more likely to be problematic (though less likely to
> be a blocker to remote fixing than a failure to boot). Having said that,
> deprecation of versions and ports is fairly rare and keeping track of a
> small group in common use is feasible.
>
> I'd be grateful for any input on this. I can picture waking up to find
> that every machine I administrate is simultaneously *#!$%ed one morning.
> On the other hand, I like to provide the best value I can for clients
> and at the moment I have to charge for my time whenever an upgrade is
> necessary.
>
You may want to have a look at freebsd-update. Its a binary updater,
Client/Server config, the server code and info on what it is, is available
from http://www.daemonology.net/freebsd-update/
and the client is in ports.

Vince

> Peter.
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