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Date:      Wed, 17 Mar 2010 15:11:40 +0000
From:      Tom Evans <tevans.uk@googlemail.com>
To:        Cristiano Deana <cristiano.deana@gmail.com>
Cc:        FreeBSD Stable Mailing List <freebsd-stable@freebsd.org>
Subject:   Re: 7.2-p7 -> 8-STABLE mergemaster core dump
Message-ID:  <2e027be01003170811p9499dcax89a78820c08740ea@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <d8a4930a1003170737u483d4e73yc69ac265e41a4448@mail.gmail.com>
References:  <d8a4930a1003170725y4a946238x6cc3957d92d53e93@mail.gmail.com> <2e027be01003170732y4ae4312fof9bf64e3574c964a@mail.gmail.com> <d8a4930a1003170737u483d4e73yc69ac265e41a4448@mail.gmail.com>

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On Wed, Mar 17, 2010 at 2:37 PM, Cristiano Deana
<cristiano.deana@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 17, 2010 at 3:32 PM, Tom Evans <tevans.uk@googlemail.com> wrote:
>
>>> make update
>>> make buildworld && make kernel && make installworld
>>> mergemaster
>>> and i got a "bad system call (core dumped)".
>
>> You can't always run new userland on an old kernel, but you can always
>> run old userland on a new kernel, which is why the process you went
>> through is not the canonical way. See the handbook or
>> /usr/src/UPDATING:
>
> yes, i knew.
> but i was updating via ssh, so forget "run in single user". i also
> know the exact procedure, but i upgrade hundreds of times before today
> making this procedure and always went fine.
>
> i was just wondering if was a "one at a time" upgrade failure OR if
> THIS upgrade (7.2 -> 8) have this problem.
>
> thanks all.
>
> btw, reboot without mergmaster and system was on again. mergemaster,
> reboot and it's ready.
> lucky me and thanks to freebsd
>

It will happen whenever you upgrade incorrectly and the newly
installed userland requires syscalls that aren't present in your
kernel. You need to be running your new kernel when you install your
new world.

What can go wrong if you don't do this order? Well, as you can see,
you couldn't run mergemaster (and probably many other programs) until
running your new kernel.
If your new kernel did not boot successfully, you would be left with a
kernel.old that boots but cant run the userland and a kernel that does
not boot that can run the userland - in other words, you would be
screwed.

When switching major versions, there is always the chance that
something major changes, so I'd try to avoid risky behaviour. YMMV.

Cheers

Tom



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