Date: Mon, 24 Dec 2007 22:48:57 -0600 From: "Jon Passki" <jon.passki@hursk.com> To: "Andrew Hotlab" <andrew.hotlab@hotmail.com> Cc: FreeBSD-Jail <freebsd-jail@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: How to better update a jail host system Message-ID: <cc6847e40712242048mf26f6d3ve360d4bb5486f2b5@mail.gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <BAY102-W41E0DDC536BD8491761400F65C0@phx.gbl> References: <BAY102-W41E0DDC536BD8491761400F65C0@phx.gbl>
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On 12/19/07, Andrew Hotlab <andrew.hotlab@hotmail.com> wrote: [snip] > All that is working fine now, but I wonder if I could speed up the whole process, by switching to the binary update method. By using the freebsd-update(8) utility on the host I think to maintain the system cleaner (this utility only updates the installed distributions) and to reduce the administrative effort (no mergemaster(8) required, I'm right?). > > Do you think my thinking is right, or there are some aspects I'm missing? (As I said, I'm not a very experienced FreeBSD sysadmin) :) I've wrestled with jail update schemes for a while now. Here's what I've tried: --) jail(8) method (direct output of make world) --) Taking make world and creating a tarball. Use that tarball for a custom port input and use the port to create the jail (make JAIL_IP=1.2.3.4 JAIL_NAME=blah), recording everything as a package (still in use) --) Use subversion to store the binaries and have subversion drive things (not very complex w/ base, but becomes highly complex with ports and one-off integration; got my docs, but never went into production) I've come to realize I had the "Not Invented Here" [1] syndrome. This still existed even though I mainly track RELENG_6_2 (6.2-RELEASE Security branch) and have maybe 5 human hours a week at most to devote to FreeBSD sysadmin. Colin Percival has already solved how to update the base system with minimal effort via freebsd-update(8). I'm now embracing the FreeBSD way of doing things. You can re-create your binary jail setup easily from sysinstall: sysinstall _ftpPath=ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ nonInteractive=yes mediaSetFTP releaseName=6.2-RELEASE dists=base distSetCustom installRoot=/path/to/jail installCommit Then, the only thing you have to manage is packages. With a patched freebsd-update [2], you can even update from 6.2 to 6.3. If ezjail supports a binary tarball update, it would be trivial to take the output of the sysinstall and freebsd-update and roll one. I dunno if your thinking is OK, but mine wasn't. Now, hopefully mine will be :-) [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_Invented_Here [2] http://www.daemonology.net/blog/2007-11-10-freebsd-minor-version-upgrade.html Cheers, Jon
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