freebsd stable - Jun 2005 - How is the patchlevel set?

Hi all,

I can't seem to find out how the patchlevel is set.

Is it incremented with each SA's patch, kernel or world,
or only kernel or only world?

Could anyone point me to some documentation by the FreeBSD project?

I know this is the stable list, but I don't want to subscribe to
one more list just for this question.

TIA,
lars.

On 06/30/05 15:47, lars wrote:
> I can't seem to find out how the patchlevel is set.
> 
> Is it incremented with each SA's patch, kernel or world,
> or only kernel or only world?
> 
> Could anyone point me to some documentation by the FreeBSD project?
> 
> I know this is the stable list, but I don't want to subscribe to
> one more list just for this question.
The patch level is set in src/sys/conf/newvers.sh.  I believe this means 
that it is only updated after rebuilding the kernel (see 'sysctl 
kern.version').

I have often applied patches from Security Advisories and rebuilt only 
what was necessary instead of world/kernel.  With a userland 
vulnerability, this is often the most expedient and unintrusive method. 
  However, the new patch level is not set this way so you have to 
document the update for yourself.  On client machines I sometimes do the 
full world/kernel rebuild and schedule a reboot just to avoid questions 
about whether the machine is up-to-date.

-- 
Jonathan Noack | noackjr@alumni.rice.edu | OpenPGP: 0x991D8195
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Thanks guys.

It seems
	src/sys/conf/newvers.sh
is only triggered by a recompilation of the kernel,
at least the lines
	i=`${MAKE:-make} -V KERN_IDENT`
and
	char kern_ident[] = "${i}";
make me believe that.

I also try to cvsup my src and recompile the kernel and world
in one go instead of only patching and recompiling the subsystem,
since that bumps the patchlevel and keeps all synchronised.
That's not possible in all scenarios, of course.

Again thanks for the answers, but how did you find that out?

Kind regards,
lars.