How is the patchlevel set?

[Jonathan Noack]

On 06/30/05 15:47, lars wrote:
> I can't seem to find out how the patchlevel is set.
> 
> Is it incremented with each SA's patch, kernel or world,
> or only kernel or only world?
> 
> Could anyone point me to some documentation by the FreeBSD project?
> 
> I know this is the stable list, but I don't want to subscribe to
> one more list just for this question.

The patch level is set in src/sys/conf/newvers.sh.  I believe this means 
that it is only updated after rebuilding the kernel (see 'sysctl 
kern.version').

I have often applied patches from Security Advisories and rebuilt only 
what was necessary instead of world/kernel.  With a userland 
vulnerability, this is often the most expedient and unintrusive method. 
  However, the new patch level is not set this way so you have to 
document the update for yourself.  On client machines I sometimes do the 
full world/kernel rebuild and schedule a reboot just to avoid questions 
about whether the machine is up-to-date.

-- 
Jonathan Noack | noackjr at alumni.rice.edu | OpenPGP: 0x991D8195
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