From owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Oct 26 14:24:19 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9E4CA16A403 for ; Thu, 26 Oct 2006 14:24:19 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from freebsd-stable@m.gmane.org) Received: from ciao.gmane.org (main.gmane.org [80.91.229.2]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 211EA43D60 for ; Thu, 26 Oct 2006 14:24:11 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from freebsd-stable@m.gmane.org) Received: from list by ciao.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.43) id 1Gd68t-0001no-B9 for freebsd-stable@freebsd.org; Thu, 26 Oct 2006 16:23:36 +0200 Received: from lara.cc.fer.hr ([161.53.72.113]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Thu, 26 Oct 2006 16:23:35 +0200 Received: from ivoras by lara.cc.fer.hr with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Thu, 26 Oct 2006 16:23:35 +0200 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org From: Ivan Voras Date: Thu, 26 Oct 2006 16:22:50 +0200 Lines: 108 Message-ID: References: <002c01c6f8f2$7656c550$0200a8c0@pc1> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: lara.cc.fer.hr User-Agent: Thunderbird 1.5.0.4 (X11/20060625) In-Reply-To: <002c01c6f8f2$7656c550$0200a8c0@pc1> Sender: news Subject: Re: Three FreeBSD 6 questions X-BeenThere: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Production branch of FreeBSD source code List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 26 Oct 2006 14:24:19 -0000 SiteRollout.com wrote: > 1.) How exactly do I know whether I am running the STABLE or CURRENT > release, as when I run uname I can only see the following relevant info: > > FreeBSD server4.domain.info 6.0-RELEASE FreeBSD 6.0-RELEASE #0: Sat Sep 23 > 13:52:48 UTC 2006 root@server4. > > domain.info:/usr/src/sys/i386/compile/SERVER4 i386 If you installed from an release CD, you're running release, and will by default continue to run it until you manually upgrade. A computer running stable would print something like this for uname: FreeBSD lara.xx.xx 6.1-STABLE FreeBSD 6.1-STABLE #11: Wed Sep 6 17:57:59 CEST 2006 ivoras@lara.xx.xx:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/LARA i386 And a computer running CURRENT would say: FreeBSD server.xx.xx 7.0-CURRENT FreeBSD 7.0-CURRENT #3: Thu Oct 23 10:28:46 CEST 2006 person@server.xx.xx:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/GW i386 Note that "RELEASE", "STABLE" and "CURRENT" are only common names for specific branches. There are plenty of documentation on which is which, but the short and dirty version is: RELEASE versions are officially meant to be widely used and have gone through testing before published. STABLE is the "low-risk development" branch, and from time to time the STABLE branch is frozen and a new release created from this branch (e.g. 6.0, 6.1, 6.2 are releases from 6-STABLE). CURRENT is bleeding edge, may cause your computer to explode, etc. Periodically, a CURRENT branch will be re-designated as STABLE and a new CURRENT will be started (thus in the future there will be 7-STABLE, 7.0-RELEASE and 8.0-CURRENT). In addition to those exist obsolete STABLE branches not meant to be used on new installations (now obsoleted are 4-STABLE and 5-STABLE, in the future when 7.x becomes STABLE, 6-STABLE will be one of the obsolete branches). > And which file do I change to use a different release, and how must I update > the system to pull in this latest release? 1. Install cvsup (or more likely cvsup-without-gui) 2. Copy /usr/share/examples/cvsup/*supfile to /etc/ 3. Edit those file to change the cvsup server name (see handbook for available servers) and version you want to upgrade to 4. Run cvsup on those file(s) > 2.) I'm a bit confused as to updating the system. As I understand, there are > 3 areas which require updates: > > i. Ports > ii. Security updates > iii. Kernel updates Security updates and kernel updates are the same, all updated with a single cvsup. This updates everything shipped with FreeBSD by default (including kernel). Study carefully what is and what is not a part of the default ("base") system - for example sshd, sendmail and bind are in it, but procmail or apache are not. There are no separate packages for applications in the base system. Ports (i.e. third party applications, which is everything from apache to vim to zsh) are updated separately. The ports tree (which contains ports/packages definitions) is updated with cvsup or portsnap, and then individual packages can be updated either manually or with portupgrade. > I know how to perform the first two, but for kernel updates I can't seen to > find a consistent unified method with talk of the "traditional" way and the > "latest" way. What is the best way to keep my FreeBSD 6.x system up2date? Edit /etc/standard-supfile (as described in the steps above), run `cvsup /etc/standard-supfile`, cd to /usr/src and run: # make buildworld <-- this will compile the userland ("base" system) # make buildkernel <-- this will compile the kernel. See manual about how to create and specify kernel config file. # make installkernel <-- this will install the kernel # make installworld <-- this will install the userland Those are the instructions for the latest recommended way to do it. To complete the upgrade, you'll need to run `mergemaster` - read about it in handbook and its man page. Mostly you can upgrade the system without problems while running in multiuser/production mode (except of course for reboots to load the new kernel and deamons), but the official way is to do it in single user mode and with several passes of mergemaster. > 3.) One of my new FreeBSD 6.0 servers went down recently. This was odd as > the actual server was hardly busy, but filesystem errors came up when > booting up the server. After running fsck, server would be up for about an > hour and then go down again. This kept happening and so I initially thought > it was due to overheating. However cooling was all good, so after further > investigation and googling I diagnosed the problem as being the background > fsck which for some reason was failing, causing the server to shutdown and > upon reboot requiring a manual fsck. See if you're low on disk space. AFAIK there was a problem in 6.0 (and maybe 6.1?) with background fsck (actually, the snapshot feature) when disk space is low. Of course, there also might be a hardware failure somewhere. If/when you get comfortable with FreeBSD, it would be beneficial if you created a simple article or howto describing your experiences, what you like and dislike about it and your learning process. have fun!