Date: Sun, 17 Dec 2006 08:39:32 -0900 From: Beech Rintoul <freebsd@alaskaparadise.com> To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Cc: Astrodog <astrodog@gmail.com> Subject: Re: Am I an Idiot? Message-ID: <200612170839.50597.freebsd@alaskaparadise.com> In-Reply-To: <2fd864e0612170807x20ff699x42538cfa497c1398@mail.gmail.com> References: <4579EB08.8080704@intersonic.se> <45851DBC.9010604@FreeBSD.org> <2fd864e0612170807x20ff699x42538cfa497c1398@mail.gmail.com>
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--nextPart15981463.5oATKVL1Lg Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Disposition: inline On Sunday 17 December 2006 07:07, Astrodog wrote: > Something that, in my opinion, may have been missed in all of this, > > Why, exactly, do you want to run -CURRENT in production? As others have > said above, its certainly possible to do. I've done it before myself, but > always because of a specific feature, or bit of supported hardware, that > didn't exist in -STABLE. > > Running -CURRENT is quite a bit more work than running -STABLE. The fact > that a -CURRENT kernel and world can build and run on a test system, does > little to indicate what type of performance, and stability you will see in > a production environment. Many of the problems that may exist in -CURRENT > will be induced by specific types of load. Race conditions, Lock Order > Reversal, and certain driver issues in many cases, only appear under > particularly heavy loads, or particular types of load. > What this means, simply, is that when you test the next version of -CURRE= NT > you'd like to run, there's quite a bit of testing you'll have to do. Along > side this type of problem, is the issue of security. If you are running > -CURRENT as of 2 weeks ago, and a security vulnerability is discovered, in > some cases, you will be compelled to upgrade to the latest -CURRENT, even > if it has known stability problems, or performance/functionality > regression. > > None of this should be construed to imply that -CURRENT cannot be run in > production, only that you really should have a compelling reason to do > so... or at the very least, quite a bit of free time. I agree with astrodog. I've been running FreeBSD since the first versions. = I=20 do run -CURRENT on my home machine, but I run 6-STABLE on my office servers= =2E=20 When you run -CURRENT you become a beta or worse an alpha tester. While I'm= =20 sure the development team would welcome your input, -CURRENT is NOT intende= d=20 for production environments. I have dealt with many serious bugs in -CURREN= T=20 over the years up to the point where it sometimes wouldn't boot at all. Whi= le=20 this is rare, it can jump up and bite you. Sometimes downloading sources an= =20 hour later makes the difference between boot/no-boot. If you do decide to=20 run -CURRENT you should be prepared to do a lot of your own troubleshooting= =20 before posting to the list. Also, you should not blindly upgrade your serve= r.=20 You should try new versions on a test machine with similar hardware before= =20 updating your production server. While -CURRENT seems to be relatively stab= le=20 right now, It's no guarantee it will remain that way. Astrodog was right in= =20 saying be prepared to spend a LOT of time, you most certainly will. Beech =2D-=20 =2D------------------------------------------------------------------------= =2D------------- Beech Rintoul - Sys. Administrator - beech@alaskaparadise.com /"\ ASCII Ribbon Campaign | Alaska Paradise Travel \ / - NO HTML/RTF in e-mail | 201 East 9Th Avenue Ste.310 X - NO Word docs in e-mail | Anchorage, AK 99501 / \ - Please visit Alaska Paradise - http://www.alaskaparadise.com =2D------------------------------------------------------------------------= =2D------------- --nextPart15981463.5oATKVL1Lg Content-Type: application/pgp-signature -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (FreeBSD) iD8DBQBFhYDmR5sEeCt9j00RAvFQAJ9xt7Stu1HWcP5wAg+wansFK207ywCgoWoo bErgtHmgjH/pdRZhzojyTMY= =UiaF -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --nextPart15981463.5oATKVL1Lg--
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