Date: Sun, 27 Jun 2004 11:24:35 -0400 From: Ken Smith <kensmith@FreeBSD.org> To: freebsd-announce@FreeBSD.org Subject: [FreeBSD-Announce] Errata Branches Message-ID: <20040627152434.GA52869@bobbi.cse.buffalo.edu>
next in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
--SLDf9lqlvOQaIe6s Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline The recent release of FreeBSD-4.10 mentioned that it will be the first "Errata Branch". This announcement is to clarify what the Errata Branches will be. For releases prior to FreeBSD-4.10 the "Release Branch" in the CVS Repository was turned over to the Security Team shortly after the release was made, at which point it was called a "Security Branch". Users could use cvs(1) or cvsup(1) to update their source code using the Security Branch Tag (e.g. RELENG_4_9 for FreeBSD-4.9) to have the major security issues patched between releases. The Security Branch Tags would not include the normal development work done by the FreeBSD Developers between releases so following the Security Branch Tags is recommended for users interested in stability. Updates to the Security Branches were handled by the Security Team, and were accompanied by a Security Advisory. Errata Branches will take the place of Security Branches. They will expand the scope of patches that will be applied to the Branch Tags to include things like strictly local Denial of Service bugs as well as major bugs that are likely to impact a significant number of users. Examples of what might now be included are bugs effecting kernel resource usage, major device driver bugs, etc. Before now users who wanted to pick up the latest set of bug fixes needed to update to the active development branch (RELENG_4). That may be acceptable to some users but with it being an active development branch that may not be the best choice for users interested in stability. Users should continue to use the same Branch Tag naming scheme as before, so for example the Errata Branch for FreeBSD-4.10 will be named RELENG_4_10. As with the security patches the version number for the system (available in the 'uname -a' output) will be updated as part of the patch to provide users with an easy way to identify what patch level a machine is at. As far as the patching of the Errata Branch is concerned there will be no distinction made between the patches applied to handle security issues versus patches applied to fix errata issues. Patches will be considered to be cumulative. The easiest approach to applying the fixes will continue to be using cvs(1) or cvsup(1) to update your source tree. Announcements for Security Advisories will continue to be sent to a wide variety of mailing lists, but the Errata Notices will only be sent to the FreeBSD-announce mailing list and posted on the FreeBSD Web site (http://www.FreeBSD.org). -ken --SLDf9lqlvOQaIe6s Content-Type: application/pgp-signature Content-Disposition: inline -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (FreeBSD) iD8DBQFA3uaw/G14VSmup/YRAnfUAJsE+xeRT4Pf3T5TlrxGGGz7Av0jNgCghjSE zMg1ZOF5hcyF6d35sNFD/rU= =5/J4 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --SLDf9lqlvOQaIe6s--
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?20040627152434.GA52869>