From owner-freebsd-hackers  Mon Feb 24 13:04:39 1997
Return-Path: <owner-hackers>
Received: (from root@localhost)
          by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id NAA17790
          for hackers-outgoing; Mon, 24 Feb 1997 13:04:39 -0800 (PST)
Received: from time.cdrom.com (root@time.cdrom.com [204.216.27.226])
          by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id NAA17784
          for <hackers@FreeBSD.ORG>; Mon, 24 Feb 1997 13:04:35 -0800 (PST)
Received: from time.cdrom.com (jkh@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by time.cdrom.com (8.8.5/8.6.9) with ESMTP id NAA01614; Mon, 24 Feb 1997 13:04:27 -0800 (PST)
To: Chris Shenton <cshenton@it.hq.nasa.gov>
cc: hackers@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject: Re: migrating 2.1.7 -> 2.2: simple or hairy? 
In-reply-to: Your message of "Mon, 24 Feb 1997 14:16:13 EST."
             <199702241916.TAA13136@wirehead.it.hq.nasa.gov> 
Date: Mon, 24 Feb 1997 13:04:27 -0800
Message-ID: <1610.856818267@time.cdrom.com>
From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@time.cdrom.com>
Sender: owner-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG
X-Loop: FreeBSD.org
Precedence: bulk

> We've got a number of boxes running 2.1.7 and want to migrate to 2.2;
> is it easy or hard?

It depends on how many short-cuts you try to take. :-)

Seriously, until there are better transition tools available which
radically compare checksum information and try to tell you exactly
what was added and what was deleted twixt the two releases (and that's
all part of my next project), the most dependable upgrade path is to
back up user files or make sure they're always kept on OS-neutral
partitions (so you can simply mount rather than newfs those
filesystems next time around - I do this all the time) and do a
complete reinstallation.

I know it sounds painful, but once you get the procedure down to a
science it's really not that bad, and the benefits are that you're
*sure* you haven't got old-library pollution or out-of-date /etc files
or any of the other 101 weird behavior quirks that an update-by-source
(or even update-by-upgrade) machine can exhibit.  Look at it as a
little extra pain up-front in exchange for avoiding it at later, less
convenient times. :-)

						Jordan

> 
> Ideally I could do:
> 
> 	mv /usr/src /usr/src.old
> 	cvsup <whatever>-supfile	[whatever's appropriate for 2.2]
> 	cd /usr/src
> 	make world
> 	make install
> 
> In the past, I've had problems trying to do this: libraries became out
> of sync and the make, cc, and other failed, leaving me with an
> unusable system.
> 
> Also, which cvsup files are appropriate? I've been tracking 'stable',
> which gives me 2.1.7. Does 'current' give me 2.2 or 3.0? Which would
> be appropriate?
> 
> Any other pointers, like maybe building in a separate /usr/src-new
> tree?
> 
> Thanks.
> 
>