Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 18:04:00 +0000 From: Matthew Seaman <m.seaman@infracaninophile.co.uk> To: Zbigniew Szalbot <zszalbot@gmail.com> Cc: freebsd-questions <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: security of a new installation / steps to take Message-ID: <47BC6B90.8010106@infracaninophile.co.uk> In-Reply-To: <94136a2c0802200941h1f8ffd26n7c4164c51c760918@mail.gmail.com> References: <94136a2c0802200802r790ea5b1ye6f1a331b15ed6f4@mail.gmail.com> <47BC61BA.60103@infracaninophile.co.uk> <94136a2c0802200941h1f8ffd26n7c4164c51c760918@mail.gmail.com>
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Zbigniew Szalbot wrote:
> Hello,
>
> 2008/2/20, Matthew Seaman <m.seaman@infracaninophile.co.uk>:
>> Make sure you track freebsd-announce@freebsd.org and apply any system patches
>> in a timely manner. Also make full use of portaudit(1) and generally ensure
>> that you are running up to date versions of any ported software.
>
> Thaaanks! Ah... this brings me to one more question. I love 6.3 but
> should I wait to install 7.0? I mean I'd hate having to update a few
> months after the server is up and running. Especially, that any
> updates will be remotely handled (fortunately the ISP promises to help
> if need be - they are excellent and very responsive in this respect).
Well, the 7.0 release candidates available now seem to run very stably
wherever I've tried them. The make a big difference to performance,
especially if you're running highly contended, multi-threaded applications.
On the other hand, I've done a number of remote 6.x -> 7.0 upgrades
without any huge difficulty. You run a risk of thinks screwing up if
your 7.0 kernel doesn't boot properly, for which you'ld need remote
hands to get you unstuck. Also, you /will/ need to recompile everything
you've installed on the machine -- applications compiled under 6.x
will run just fine so long as you don't do the 'delete-old-libs'
step of the upgrade procedure too soon, and you can install the
compat6x libs to survive even that. However having a lot of 6.x
software installed will make it exceeding difficult to maintain your
ports, plus the new compiler in 7.0 can get you some useful performance
enhancements. That mega-recompilation step does tend to lead to some
non-neglible periods of service downtime, but apart from the time
consumption it's pretty routine stuff.
Cheers,
Matthew
- --
Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil. 7 Priory Courtyard
Flat 3
PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey Ramsgate
Kent, CT11 9PW
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