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From: Mike Clarke <jmc-freebsd2@milibyte.co.uk>
To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2010 16:25:03 +0100
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Cc: Kyle Dippery <kyle@engr.uky.edu>
Subject: Re: freebsd-update newbie
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On Tuesday 31 August 2010, Kyle Dippery wrote:

> I've just installed 8.1 from distribution CDs and updated stable
> with cvsup.  I want to enable freebsd-update to keep the system,
> well, updated.
>
> First try, 'freebsd-update fetch' yielded a number of failure
> messages

freebsd-update will only track the RELEASE branch.

If you want to track STABLE you'll have to use csup and rebuild the 
entire system from source each time. Unless you really want to track 
the latest developments in STABLE you can stay with RELEASE and use 
freebsd-update to ensure that you get all the security patches. See 
section 24.5.2 in the FreeBSD Handbook to help you decide if you really 
need STABLE 
<http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/current-stable.html>

If you choose to stick with RELEASE then it's worth subscribing to the 
FreeBSD Security Advisories mailing list and only running 
freebsd-update after any updates have been announced. 
<http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-security-notifications> 

-- 
Mike Clarke