From owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Jun 4 20:43:29 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6B8F01065671; Wed, 4 Jun 2008 20:43:29 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from cliftonr@lava.net) Received: from outgoing01.lava.net (cake.lava.net [IPv6:2001:1888:0:1:230:48ff:fe5b:3b50]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 141BA8FC18; Wed, 4 Jun 2008 20:43:29 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from cliftonr@lava.net) Received: from malasada.lava.net (malasada.lava.net [64.65.64.17]) by outgoing01.lava.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id D8EC3D03F3; Wed, 4 Jun 2008 10:43:27 -1000 (HST) Received: by malasada.lava.net (Postfix, from userid 102) id 4E660153882; Wed, 4 Jun 2008 10:43:27 -1000 (HST) Date: Wed, 4 Jun 2008 10:43:27 -1000 From: Clifton Royston To: Doug Barton Message-ID: <20080604204325.GD4701@lava.net> Mail-Followup-To: Doug Barton , Jo Rhett , FreeBSD Stable References: <9B7FE91B-9C2E-4732-866C-930AC6022A40@netconsonance.com> <4846D849.2090005@FreeBSD.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <4846D849.2090005@FreeBSD.org> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.2.2i Cc: Jo Rhett , FreeBSD Stable Subject: Re: challenge: end of life for 6.2 is premature with buggy 6.3 X-BeenThere: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Production branch of FreeBSD source code List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 04 Jun 2008 20:43:29 -0000 On Wed, Jun 04, 2008 at 11:00:41AM -0700, Doug Barton wrote: > Jo Rhett wrote: ... > >But given that 6.3 is still experiencing bugs with things that > >are working fine and stable in 6.2, this is a pretty hard case to make. > > I admit to not having been following 6.x too closely, but are these > things that have been reported, or problems you're having personally? Speaking just for myself, I'd love to get a general response from people who have run servers on both as to whether 6.3 is on average more stable than 6.2. I really haven't gotten any clear impression as to this, either from posts on -hackers or -stable, and I believe I asked a couple times. I've seen comments that 6.3 should be considerably more stable than 6.2, but also complaints about bugs such as Jo is commenting on, and I have not seen much committed in the way of errata fixes for 6.3 since its release. I'd love to pick up some more stability, but I'm feeling a little burned by 6.2 relative to 4.10, and thus twice wary. > >This is also a fairly significant investment in terms of time and money > >for any business to handle this ugprade. > > Having an upgrade path is something every operation needs. "Set it and > forget it" isn't a viable strategy in the current culture where 0-day > vulnerabilities are becoming increasingly common. Fair enough. Now I must confess my ignorance; is there a simplest straightforward way to upgrade multiple servers between releases in the same branch, other than rebuilding each from source, or wiping and reinstalling? In the past I've always done one of those two. For example, if I take a 6.3R CD, or build one for 6-RELENG, is there a way to do an "upgrade in place" on each server? Or would it work better to do a build from recent source on the development server, then export /usr/src and /usr/obj via NFS to the production servers and do the usual "make installkernel; reboot;" etc. sequence on them? (In my case I do have all machines on one GigE switch.) -- Clifton -- Clifton Royston -- cliftonr@iandicomputing.com / cliftonr@lava.net President - I and I Computing * http://www.iandicomputing.com/ Custom programming, network design, systems and network consulting services