From owner-freebsd-security@FreeBSD.ORG Wed May 14 01:07:30 2003 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-security@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 85C8537B401 for ; Wed, 14 May 2003 01:07:30 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mta02-svc.ntlworld.com (mta02-svc.ntlworld.com [62.253.162.42]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 22CC643F75 for ; Wed, 14 May 2003 01:07:29 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from colin.percival@wadham.ox.ac.uk) Received: from piii600.wadham.ox.ac.uk ([81.103.196.4]) by mta02-svc.ntlworld.comESMTP <20030514080727.PPZP9882.mta02-svc.ntlworld.com@piii600.wadham.ox.ac.uk>; Wed, 14 May 2003 09:07:27 +0100 Message-Id: <5.0.2.1.1.20030514085255.01df92a0@popserver.sfu.ca> X-Sender: cperciva@popserver.sfu.ca X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 5.0.2 Date: Wed, 14 May 2003 09:07:24 +0100 To: Colin Percival , Michael Nottebrock , FreeBSD Security From: Colin Percival In-Reply-To: <5.0.2.1.1.20030513001702.02e4a018@popserver.sfu.ca> References: <200305130104.25177.michaelnottebrock@gmx.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Subject: Re: xdelta files for security patches X-BeenThere: freebsd-security@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Security issues [members-only posting] List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 14 May 2003 08:07:30 -0000 At 00:35 13/05/2003 +0100, I wrote: > Using some form of binary diffs is on my todo list for FreeBSD Update > (security/freebsd-update), but it's not a matter of critical > importance. Right now updating from 4.7-RELEASE to the latest binaries > takes around 30 MB, depending upon which install set you chose (nocrypt, > crypt, kerberos4, kerberos5); good binary diffs would probably reduce > this to around 5 MB. > That said, I'm not sure if I would choose xdelta. Of course, when I wrote this, I had no idea that I was about to write a binary diff/patch utility in 12 hours. In doing so, I've lost quite a bit of respect for xdelta; ok, my code is about five times slower and has a larger memory footprint, but it produces diffs 35% smaller and weighs in at a massive 281 lines (in contrast to the thousands of lines of code in xdelta). I'll be adding this into FreeBSD Update in the near future. If anyone wants the code for other purposes, feel free to contact me. Colin Percival