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Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2013 16:07:03 +0200
From: Polytropon <freebsd@edvax.de>
To: Daniel Feenberg <feenberg@nber.org>
Subject: Re: FreeBSD-update?
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On Thu, 25 Apr 2013 07:37:01 -0400 (EDT), Daniel Feenberg wrote:
> 
> 
> On Thu, 25 Apr 2013, Steve O'Hara-Smith wrote:
> 
> >
> > 	The problem under discussion is that the kernel version does not
> > change when a freebsd-update update does not include a kernel change.
> >
> 
> Perhaps we could adopt the Linux practice of placing the release 
> information in /etc/issue

I'd like to see a working placeholder for this file, not a
modification, because it could be a "custom file" (created
specifically for a system). Or do you perhaps refer to /etc/motd
and the update_motd="YES" (update version info in /etc/motd)
as seen in /etc/defaults/rc.conf?

In /etc/issue, you write something like "%s/%m %r" to print
the information before the login prompt. Or you use something
like the traditional "im=\r\n%s/%m (%h) (%t)" in /etc/gettytab.

Those are placeholders, the information is stored _outside_
of the files.

Maybe it could be possible to add a text file in /etc that will
contain the correct OS and kernel version number, maybe the
date of the source the system has been built from (or the
binary package for freebsd-update has been created from),
and maybe the SVN revision number, because it looks important. :-)

Then, if there could be mechanisms to plug this information
properly into the traditional placeholders as described.
Uhm... that would be great.



-- 
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...