difference between cvsup and portsnap

[Warren Block]

On Fri, 29 May 2009, Barry McCormick wrote:

> Here at my work we use FreeBSD in production.  We have the following
> debate and wish to know better the differences between cvsup(csup) and
> portsnap.  One of my co-workers think that portsnap should NOT be used
> and only gets the latest and greatest port collection, no matter what
> version  of FreeBSD is on the server.   For example, if you are still
> running a 5.4 stable box in production and use any of the portsnap,
> portupgrade, etc utilities, you would pull the current version ports and
> NOT from teh directory of the 5.4 ports. I.E, risk breaking the
> production box.  So you should not use portsnap ever except for dev
> boxes.

The idea that there's a "5.4 ports" directory is mistaken.  The ports 
tree isn't branched; note the lack of a "tag=" entry in the example 
ports-supfile.  csup will let you retrieve from a certain date, but 
that's not normal usage for the ports tree.

So check your ports-supfile.  It's probably already retrieving the 
latest version of ports, just like portsnap.

-Warren Block * Rapid City, South Dakota USA