uname -r and patchlevel

[Manolis Kiagias]

On 01/06/2010 2:33 ?.?., n dhert wrote:
> Can somebody explain about the -p<level> one sees in the output of the
> uname -r ?
> Under  *exactly* what conditions the patch level changes to a new value
> after you applied a freebsd-update install ?
>   

If you are using the GENERIC kernel AND the kernel was updated as part
of the freebsd-update process, the patch level is changed. You will need
to reboot.
If you are using the GENERIC kernel AND the kernel was not updated as
part of the freebsd-update process, the patch level reported is unchanged
if you are using a CUSTOM kernel, the reported patch level is not
changed until you rebuild your kernel with the new sources as updated by
freebsd-update. After rebuilding your kernel it always reflects the
latest -p version, even if there were no actual kernel changes.

The reported -p level is contained in this file:

/usr/src/sys/conf/newvers.sh

and this is always updated when an update comes through. If you rebuild
your custom kernel (or even GENERIC) it will always report the value
from this file.