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Date:      Thu, 23 Sep 2004 19:16:57 -0700
From:      Dariusz Kulinski <takeda@takeda.tk>
To:        freebsd-stable@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: upgrade questions 4.10 -> 5-stable
Message-ID:  <83874859.20040923191657@takeda.tk>
Resent-Message-ID: <200409240216.i8O2GvBI089212@freebsd.takeda.tk>

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Hello Bruce,

Thursday, September 23, 2004, 8:54:19 AM, you wrote:

>> What about directories that I definitively shouldn't restore, for
>> example:
>> /usr/include /usr/lib most likely /bin /sbin /usr/bin /usr/sbin /stand
>> and so on, maybe that could help me better.

> Here's the deal.  For any of the systems I maintain, I wouldn't
> restore any of these from backups after a source upgrade because in
> general, those directories contain *only* files installed from the
> base system.  But how can I tell how *you* have *your* system set up?

Well, I'm avoiding to change anything in system files, and all
additional stuff I'm actually putting in /usr/local.

I'm interested about directories that are changed by system/system
programs - I belive most confusing is /var in theory there shouldn't
be anything important there (well except logs), but I already noticed
there is mail, crontab jobs, informations what ports were installed
even mysql port install database there. 

>> That step was in source upgrade category, so I assumed it might not
>> be correct for binary upgrade.

> You *asked* about the source upgrade procedure above.

I'm sorry, I see now. I wrote one thing but I was thinking about
another. I meant binary upgrade, sorry for the confusion.

> For binary upgrades, it's probably best to carefully examine the files
> in your backups and merge the changes in by hand.  After a binary
> install, the old files will be gone, so there won't be anything for
> mergemaster to operate on.

Yes that's true, but using mergemaster is less work. And I still have
old files in backup.

> Good candidates for merging are:  /etc/passwd, /etc/group, and
> /etc/rc.conf.  Don't just blindly drop in your backup files.

So I see next step - selecting which files from /etc are needed to be
restored.

>> What about ports, I know that I need to recompile them, but will they
>> work for that time?
> We believe that most ports will work if you install the compat4x
> libraries and don't upgrade anything.  But there's a few that *need*
> to be upgraded, due to changes in the statfs structure.  Also if
> you're going to upgrade ports in the future, it's probably safest to
> reinstall all ports.

I see

>> It's not really mission-critical, but it's like that for me :)
>> It works as my mail/web server so I want to have shortest downtime
>> possible :)

> Then you want to take your time and do things carefully so that you
> don't have a longer downtime caused by screwing up the upgrade.  I've
> had this happen more times than I can count (not on FreeBSD, but the
> experience applies).

Thank you very much for your tips on upgrading.

-- 
Best regards,
 Dariusz                            mailto:takeda@takeda.tk
CCNA, SCSA, SCNA, LPIC, MCP certified
http://www.takeda.tk



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