Clarification on updating FreeBSD through csup

[Rakhesh Sasidharan]

Daniel Bye wrote:

> On Mon, Sep 17, 2007 at 09:24:26PM +0400, Rakhesh Sasidharan wrote:
>> I understand I can use csup to follow the RELENG_62 branch. After the
>> sources are downloaded, do I have to follow all the steps outlined in this
>> (http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/makeworld.html)
>> handbook document? I can understand building and installing world and
>> kernel, but would I have to reboot to single user and do the mergemaster
>> stuff too?
>
> If you follow the complete rebuild instructions, yes. If you follow the
> instructions for *patching* the system as given in the relevant security
> notifications, then only if those instructions say so. You do subscribe
> to security-notifications@, don't you?  ;-)

Err, not yet but I just did after seeing your mail. :)

Now that you mention, yes, I had seen those security notifications and 
they mention what to do by way of patching. Great! That's better.

>> I *think* I might not have to do mergemaster coz security updates
>> shouldn't have changes in the /etc files and so there'd be no need for
>> merging files.
>
> Sometimes, the security fixes involve changes under /etc. The recent
> jails error comes to mind, as a case in point.

Thanks for the example.

> I'd suggest trying it out on a non-critical system, so as to familiarise
> yourself with the procedure. You'll be glad you did.

That's the plan. I wanted to try this method out (a) to familiarize myself 
with it, and (b) I understand if one builds custom kernels then the 
freebsd-update method won't work ... I've csuped the RELENG_62 branch, now 
I'll check out the patches and try applying them.

Thanks for your inputs!

 				- Rakhesh
                                 http://rakhesh.net/