From owner-freebsd-stable Wed Jul 25 22:35:50 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Received: from poontang.schulte.org (poontang.schulte.org [209.134.156.197]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2068437B403 for ; Wed, 25 Jul 2001 22:35:47 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from christopher@schulte.org) Received: from tarmap.schulte.org (tarmap.schulte.org [209.134.156.198]) by poontang.schulte.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B25DAD14C8; Thu, 26 Jul 2001 00:35:40 -0500 (CDT) Message-Id: <5.1.0.14.0.20010726002434.09510b08@pop.schulte.org> X-Sender: schulte@pop.schulte.org X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 5.1 Date: Thu, 26 Jul 2001 00:35:40 -0500 To: "Shawn Ramsey" , "Thierry Herbelot" From: Christopher Schulte Subject: Re: Not updating /etc Cc: In-Reply-To: <009001c11593$0e718120$de48a93f@shawn> References: <003601c1154c$7240ed40$de48a93f@shawn> <3B5F34B0.BF32DF9D@herbelot.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Sender: owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG AWell, seeing as to how easy it is with mergemaster, there isn't really any >reason not to. But wouldn't the system just boot like whatever I was >previosly running? I don't see why it would hurt to leave it alone if one >wanted to, but then again what do I know. :) Update /etc ! ! ! ! ! ! Run mergemaster! There are important changes made to your /etc tree. Files like /etc/rc /etc/network /etc/security /etc/pam.conf and tons more. One example I can come off my head with is /etc/pam.conf. There was a change made a while back to FreeBSD's shipped version of OpenSSH which *REQUIRED* that pam.conf be properly updated. People who skipped mergemaster (which would have alerted them to the change and given the opportunity to install the new version, or merge the changes with any locally modified version) and rebooted were in for a bad time. OpenSSH no longer processed remote logins, leaving some boxes in remote locations with no access. There are doubtlessly many other situations like this which have appeared and will appear in the future. A properly synchronized /etc is critical for successful system upgrades, IMVOHO. -- Christopher Schulte Finger for PGP key, or for UNIX impaired: http://noc.schulte.org/cgi-bin/noc/finger.cgi To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message