Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)
Date:      Tue, 2 Mar 2004 22:42:24 -0500
From:      "fbsd_user" <fbsd_user@a1poweruser.com>
To:        "Jez Hancock" <jez.hancock@munk.nu>, "lee slaughter" <lee@slaughters.com>
Cc:        freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.org
Subject:   RE: production box: 4.9, 5.1, 5.2+ ???
Message-ID:  <MIEPLLIBMLEEABPDBIEGCEMMFNAA.fbsd_user@a1poweruser.com>
In-Reply-To: <20040303015038.GA17806@users.munk.nu>

next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
This is all very rosy commentary  about 5.2, But there has been a
lot of questions list traffic the last 6 weeks about 5.2 freezing up
under heavy loads where the new UFS2 gets in an lockout condition.
What about the nfs tasks that run all the time even when you do not
select nfs during the install, or the way an recompiled kernel is
installed with out the safe guards of the previous kernel being
saved and the generic kernel all ways being there by default,  or
the bios power management problem? These things need to be addressed
before moving to stable. There has been no posted fixes about these
problems. 5.2 is still from the development branch and the handbook
says use it at your own risk. So I guess it all depends on your
definition of what production means to you, like in what your system
does and how important the information on the 5.2 system is to you
and how good your backups are if you have any at all. Personally I
can not be an gunny pig testing an development version in my
production environment, I do not have time to waste reinstalling 4.9
to get back to an stable system and all the hassle of reinstalling
all my port applications. Or face my users rage over the outage 5.2
may cause. I have installed 5.2 RC1 on an stand-a-lone development
box to look it over, but there are just too many obvious indications
of sloppy workmanship that still need attention. It's just too big
of an gamble for me.  To all of you with true production systems who
take the big gamble, more power to you, and good luck you brave
soles.  Just throwing a word of conservative caution to those who
may be inclined to jump on the gunny pig wagon without full
knowledge of what's at stake due to the previous rosy 5.2 posts. 4.9
is the official stable version and it has performed rock hard for
me.

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
[mailto:owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org]On Behalf Of Jez Hancock
Sent: Tuesday, March 02, 2004 8:51 PM
To: lee slaughter
Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.org
Subject: Re: production box: 4.9, 5.1, 5.2+ ???

On Tue, Mar 02, 2004 at 04:40:00PM -0800, lee slaughter wrote:
> thanks for any clarification i can get on:
>    1. which is best "production" version

As already highlighted, 4.x is touted as being production quality.
However there are no doubt plenty of users on this forum that use
5.x in
production environments who would testify that 5.x is of production
quality.

>    2. what is best essential upkeep mechanism (not so much for
apps
>       but for bug fixes in OS and security fixes/patches on
essential stuff
>       like OpenSsh)

The best thing to do is to cvsup your source to the latest RELEASE
branch of
whichever version you decide to stick with (say 4.9), then make
build|installworld
to bring it up to the very latest in terms of security and other
essential fixes.  From this point you can then afford to ONLY apply
essential security patches which are released to the
freebsd-announce mailing list (make sure you're subscribed to it:P)

See the handbook for more info:

http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/cutting-ed
ge.html
- essential reading for what you want to do - especially:


http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/current-st
able.html
  - which covers the subtleties between the different branches,
current
        and stable - annoyingly RELEASE isn't mentioned on that
page, not
        sure why - it's mentioned in the cvs-tags link below though.

http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/cvsup.html
- about using cvsup to keep up to date - lengthy but good

http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/cvs-tags.h
tml
- about cvs tags, which you need to know about when cvsup'ing

Also see the cvsup supfile examples in:

/usr/src/share/examples/cvsup/

these give you a good overview of how to structure your cvsup
supfile,
although this is also covered in the 3rd link above.

--
Jez Hancock
 - System Administrator / PHP Developer

http://munk.nu/
http://jez.hancock-family.com/  - Another FreeBSD Diary
http://ipfwstats.sf.net/        - ipfw peruser traffic logging
_______________________________________________
freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list
http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions
To unsubscribe, send any mail to
"freebsd-questions-unsubscribe@freebsd.org"



Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?MIEPLLIBMLEEABPDBIEGCEMMFNAA.fbsd_user>