Security Updates and Patching Two Choices?

Sean Murphy smurphy at calarts.edu
Mon Mar 29 11:30:10 PST 2004


I would like to stay patched with the latest security advisories.    
However usually I wait until the next release iso becomes available and  
do a fresh install that includes all the known exploites.  My reason  
behind this is the "makeworld", "CVSup", and "mergemaster" is very time  
consuming/complicated.  "Mergemaster" especially when I'm merging /etc  
files that I have no clue what they do.  I also don't want "all"  
sources compiled on my system.  I like a minimized OS.  I don't want to  
build "all" sources when I just need these on my system (bin, man, and  
crypto).  The same selection I use from a new install from  
/stand/sysinstall.  Is that possible?

However in the "security advisories" the second option is to download  
this file and patch the existing source and do a "makeworld"

here is an excerpt of the latest advisory
---
a) Download the relevant patch from the location below, and verify the
detached PGP signature using your PGP utility.

# fetch  
ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/CERT/patches/SA-04:05/openssl.patch
# fetch  
ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/CERT/patches/SA-04:05/ 
openssl.patch.asc

b) Execute the following commands as root:

# cd /usr/src
# patch < /path/to/patch

c) Recompile the operating system as described in
<URL:  
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/ 
makeworld.html >.
---

It seem the "makeworld" process is the only way to keep the system  
patched.

If a tag just the 4_9 Release in the CVSupfile can i just ignore the  
mergemaster? also can I just CVSup the sources and build the ones I  
want? (see above)

Thanks in advance

Sean Murphy
smurphy at calarts.edu



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