Date: Wed, 26 Feb 1997 00:57:54 -0500 From: Jim Durham <durham@w2xo.pgh.pa.us> To: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@time.cdrom.com> Cc: Chris Shenton <cshenton@it.hq.nasa.gov>, hackers@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: migrating 2.1.7 -> 2.2: simple or hairy? Message-ID: <3313D0E2.446B9B3D@w2xo.pgh.pa.us> References: <1610.856818267@time.cdrom.com>
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Jordan K. Hubbard wrote: > > > We've got a number of boxes running 2.1.7 and want to migrate to 2.2; > > is it easy or hard? > > It depends on how many short-cuts you try to take. :-) > > Seriously, until there are better transition tools available which > radically compare checksum information and try to tell you exactly > what was added and what was deleted twixt the two releases (and that's > all part of my next project), the most dependable upgrade path is to > back up user files or make sure they're always kept on OS-neutral > partitions (so you can simply mount rather than newfs those > filesystems next time around - I do this all the time) and do a > complete reinstallation. > > I know it sounds painful, but once you get the procedure down to a > science it's really not that bad, and the benefits are that you're > *sure* you haven't got old-library pollution or out-of-date /etc files > or any of the other 101 weird behavior quirks that an update-by-source > (or even update-by-upgrade) machine can exhibit. Look at it as a > little extra pain up-front in exchange for avoiding it at later, less > convenient times. :-) > Jordan One thing I do here is let "ls -lt | more" be my friend. Looking at /etc, you can see all the files that have been modified after the system was installed, like sysconfig and services, etc. I save these out to a "safe" place so that I can at least reconstruct the system. I run diffs on the new and old file versions after the new version is installed. If I see only changes I made, I just copy the old file back. If I see it's a new version of the file, then at least I have a guide to modify the new version to do the same job as the old. BTW, it would be a nice addition to "locate" to allow it to search for files later than the install date in directories like /etc and /bin or /sbin. (lots of stuff deleted) > > > > Any other pointers, like maybe building in a separate /usr/src-new > > tree? > > > > Thanks. -Jim Durham
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