From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Tue May 13 10:06:00 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5B101106566C for ; Tue, 13 May 2008 10:06:00 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jonathan@hst.org.za) Received: from hermes.hst.org.za (onix.hst.org.za [209.203.2.133]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7A3D88FC25 for ; Tue, 13 May 2008 10:05:57 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jonathan@hst.org.za) Received: from sysadmin.hst.org.za (sysadmin.int.dbn.hst.org.za [10.1.1.20]) (authenticated bits=0) by hermes.hst.org.za (8.13.8/8.13.8) with ESMTP id m4DA49KZ073034 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=RC4-MD5 bits=128 verify=NO) for ; Tue, 13 May 2008 12:04:10 +0200 (SAST) (envelope-from jonathan@hst.org.za) From: Jonathan McKeown Organization: Health Systems Trust To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Date: Tue, 13 May 2008 12:08:12 +0200 User-Agent: KMail/1.7.2 References: In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <200805131208.12599.jonathan@hst.org.za> X-Spam-Score: -4.399 () ALL_TRUSTED,BAYES_00 X-Scanned-By: MIMEDefang 2.61 on 209.203.2.133 Subject: Ports best practice (was Re: Imagemagick port seems broken....) X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 13 May 2008 10:06:00 -0000 On Tuesday 13 May 2008 01:04, Johan Dowdy wrote: > Just as a best practice you might want to consider running a weekly cvsup > out of cron. I'm not sure I'd call this best practice in all cases, having taken over a network where every server OS install, and every port, used whatever had been the latest and greatest that day (at one stage I think I was running every release from 4.8 to 6.0, plus a couple of boxes running given snapshots of -STABLE). I can do without the irritation of having to check, every time I log in to a different machine, whether the command I'm about to run or the config file I'm about to edit supports the option I'm hoping to use. I now have most of the servers running the same OS release, and running the same version of each port, all installed from a central build server with locally-built packages where possible. When something needs to be upgraded, we follow a documented procedure to make sure that there are no problems or regressions and that everything stays more or less in step. Yes, it means our ports tree is often three months or so out of date. You'd be surprised how seldom that causes a problem. You'd be astonished how much easier it makes my life knowing every setup is the same. Jonathan