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Date:      Wed, 07 Jan 2004 12:44:50 -0500
From:      Duane Winner <duanewinner@att.net>
To:        freebsd-questions <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.org>
Subject:   staying 'up-to-date' questions
Message-ID:  <1073497489.3925.22.camel@closetotheedge>

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Hello,

I'm suffering from some confusion regarding keeping my FreeBSD systems
up-to-date. Does anybody have any 'best practices' advice?
I've been reading three books (Complete BSD, Absolute, Unleased) as well
the handbook, but I'm still not clear about how I should manage my
up-to-date practices.

I know how to use cvsup, and have done it.
I know how to customize and install a kernel, and have done that as
well.
I know how to do a 'make buildworld/installworld' and I have also used
pkg_version -v and portupgrade.

But I'm still not sure how to be certain my system(s) are up-to-date.

I've installed 4.9-RELEASE from the .ISO image.
I just want to be certain that I have all security patches now and in
the future.

If I have "*default release=cvs tag=RELEASE_4_9" in my cvsup file, will
I get all the updates I need to be secure?

How do I know when to build a new kernel? How will I know when there is
a security patch for the kernel?
If I cronjob cvsup and rebuild the kernel once a week, will I be up to
date?
How do I know if my running kernel is up-to-date?

Sorry if I'm coming off as dense here, but it's strange -- I was always
told that FreeBSD is much more difficult to master than Linux. But for
the most part, I'm finding it much easier to get my arms around. It's
just this concept of staying current that is driving me batty.

For you folks who want to maintain stable, secure FreeBSD severs, what
practices do you follow?

Thanks for any advice.



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