Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2002 20:00:28 -0800 From: "Kevin Oberman" <oberman@es.net> To: Michael Sharp <ms@probsd.ws> Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Mergemaster Message-ID: <20020218040028.875CE5D09@ptavv.es.net> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sun, 17 Feb 2002 21:03:59 EST." <200202180203.g1I23xE58376@probsd.ws>
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> From: Michael Sharp <ms@probsd.ws> > Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2002 21:03:59 -0500 > Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG > > I'm kinda new to FreeBSD and I am about to do the -RELEASE to -STABLE > procedure. I'm a little confused as to what mergemaster does, and what I > should do.. whether install the temp, or delete, or merge. As I understand > it, if you have self-edited files in the /etc directory and you want to keep > those changes, you dont install the temp file and leave it for later. > However, if you havent self-edited a /etc file, its best to install it. Am I > correct? What 'merge' does, I have no idea? Someone mind clarifying what > mergemaster does, is it ok to skip the process? Michael, mergemaster does about what you think. There are a number of system file which are routinely modified by system admins and, when changes are made to the base files in the FreeBSD distribution, it would be disastrous to simply replace the existing file. Imagine your password file suddenly being replaced by one with none of your accounts in it! Megemaster-Why and How The purpose of mergemaster is to allow changes to files that are frequently/normally configured by an system administrator. These are mostly in the /etc tree. When you run mergemaster, it will build a copy of the root environment, by default in /var/tmp/temproot. Once this is done, you will get a list of files you have on your system that are not in the FreeBSD distribution. These are files that are not part of the distribution, files installed by X11 or files you have created. It's a good idea to scan over this list, but I'll admit that I seldom bother. Next, you will start getting the output of "diff | more" for all existing files that are different from the newly downloaded version. If the file is one you have not customized, you almost certainly want to select 'i' to install the newer file. You may also get some files that don't exist on your system because they were added to the tree since your prior installation. You almost certainly want to install 'i' these, too. I always look at the differences, even though I know I will be selecting the new version. There is a lot of easily understandable information about changes in the system and it might cause you to realize that something is messed up in the current installation or something new that you want to learn more about. If you have a reason to not want to install the new version or make any changes to the old version, choose 'd'. You probably don't really want to do this, though. When you get to a file that you have edited, you probably want to merge. If you select 'm', you will get an sdiff display where you can blend lines from your existing file (on the left) and the new file (on the right) by entering 'l' or 'r'. You should ALWAYS select the right (new) choice for the RCS version line so that you will not keep being bugged by this every time you run mergemaster. If the changes are such that simply selecting 'l' or 'r' does not do the right thing, you can choose 'e' to bring up the file in an editor so that you can make it look exactly like you want it to look. Remember to include the RCS version line from the new (right) version. The first time you run mergemaster is the worst. After you have done your merges, future runs won't ask about the most files because the RCS versions will not be changed (unless, of course, the distribution file HAS changed.) Never just let mergemaster install everything! You may lose password, groups, printcap, or other files critical to system operation. Finally, mergemaster will give you the opportunity to instantiate the changes made to files like /dev/MAKEDEV, /etc/mail/aliases, and master.passwd. Unless you are confident that there is a reason not to do any of these, answer 'y'. Finally, if you can't decide how to proceed, you can leave the new file in the temporary directory and worry about them later. But even this has risks as some changes (e.g. pam.conf) may be required for things to run normally. Try to avoid this option. R. Kevin Oberman, Network Engineer Energy Sciences Network (ESnet) Ernest O. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) E-mail: oberman@es.net Phone: +1 510 486-8634 To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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