freebsd stable - Jan 2012 - freebsd-update problems

Freebsd-update is both an excellent tool, but also sadly lacking in some ways,
mostly documentation. Let's look at a recent experience...


-----------------

# uname -a
FreeBSD splash.internal 8.1-RELEASE-p5 FreeBSD 8.1-RELEASE-p5 #0: Tue Sep 27
16:49:00 UTC 2011    
root@amd64-builder.daemonology.net:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/GENERIC  amd64


# freebsd-update fetch
Looking up update.FreeBSD.org mirrors... 4 mirrors found.
Fetching metadata signature for 8.1-RELEASE from update5.FreeBSD.org... done.
Fetching metadata index... done.
Inspecting system... done.
Preparing to download files... done.

The following files are affected by updates, but no changes have
been downloaded because the files have been modified locally:
/var/db/mergemaster.mtree

No updates needed to update system to 8.1-RELEASE-p8.

-----------------

Some problems:

1. I am clearly running 8.2-p5, but the final message says "no updates
needed". That's clearly not correct since p5 < p8. And running uname
again after this results in still seeing p5. My guess is that the message should
say:

    No update will be applied until you merge the locally modified files, OR

Or else, freebsd-update is just broken and refuses to update the system properly
for an unknown reason.
  

2. I didn't touch mergemaster.mtree manually. Well, I don't think I did.
But even if I had, could the tool give me some clue as to how to proceed from
here? Do I now have to go back to csup to update my system and never be able to
use freebsd-update again? Is there a trick to fool freebsd-update into
overwriting this file which I don't think I touched?

It would be nice if freebsd-update could be more helpful about what the user
should do next when it finds an error.



Thanks
Ari



-- 
-------------------------->
Aristedes Maniatis
ish
http://www.ish.com.au
Level 1, 30 Wilson Street Newtown 2042 Australia
phone +61 2 9550 5001   fax +61 2 9550 4001
GPG fingerprint CBFB 84B4 738D 4E87 5E5C  5EFA EF6A 7D2E 3E49 102A

On 01/07/2012 09:14, Aristedes Maniatis wrote:
>  [...]
>
> 2. I didn't touch mergemaster.mtree manually. Well, I don't think I
did.
> But even if I had, could the tool give me some clue as to how to proceed
> from here? Do I now have to go back to csup to update my system and
> never be able to use freebsd-update again? Is there a trick to fool
> freebsd-update into overwriting this file which I don't think I
touched?
>
> It would be nice if freebsd-update could be more helpful about what the
> user should do next when it finds an error.
>
>
>
> Thanks
> Ari
>
uname only reports the kernel info. I don't remember if the p6-8 updates 
touched anything in the kernel, so the kernel probably wasn't rebuilt.

You can check in the file /usr/src/sys/conf/newvers.sh, there is a 
variable named BRANCH. That should tell you which was your last update.


Regards,
-vid

2012/1/7 Aristedes Maniatis <ari@ish.com.au>:
> [...]
> 1. I am clearly running 8.2-p5, but the final message says "no updates
> needed". That's clearly not correct since p5 < p8. And running
uname again
> after this results in still seeing p5.
That's not really true.
Unless an update upgrades the kernel, the result of "uname -a" will
not change. For it to change, you have to recompile the kernel
yourself - using the generic of a custom configuration.

Your current release level is the fourth field in
/var/db/freebsd-update/tag, IIRC.

-- 
Gianni Vialetto
"To see things in the seed, that is genius." - Lao Tzu