Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2026 10:04:06 -0700 From: Mark Millard <marklmi@yahoo.com> To: Alexander Ziaee <ziaee@FreeBSD.org>, Larry Fahnoe <fahnoe@fahnoetech.com> Cc: vermaden <vermaden@interia.pl>, Lexi Winter <ivy@freebsd.org>, freebsd-pkgbase <freebsd-pkgbase@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: None of "man freebsd-base" (or "man pkgbase"), "man pkg-upgrade", or "man pkg-install" deal with documenting .pkgsave and/or .pkgnew behavior or how to handle such Message-ID: <d3b585aa-a2d9-4749-a2c6-4c24f6d70a94@yahoo.com> In-Reply-To: <E1wea2V-0006mp-Ab@rmmprod07.runbox> References: <Ixz2bfOmtE-ie9vz-GXnrp94AUzVwaDhHCR2wv_hk1hQ1KGOgFcgrmOebmRCsBlMvo-jivXDu3yZQtE3vIIbr5-v6KtudANkIhwjkeDgyyc=@fahnoetech.com> <E1wea2V-0006mp-Ab@rmmprod07.runbox>
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On 6/30/26 08:06, Alexander Ziaee wrote:
> On Monday, June 30, 2026, Larry Fahnoe <fahnoe@fahnoetech.com> wrote:
>> On Monday, June 29th, 2026, Mark Millard <marklmi@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>>> I have suggested elsewhere that the last of the output from those
>>> commands should probably list the counts of each of *.pkgnew and
>>> *.pkgave such files generated for any where the count is positive.
>>> That would make a good prompt to go looking --and allow avoiding
>>> looking when none were generated.
>>
>> I would second this comment/suggestion, particularly for those who are
>> newer or less familiar with FreeBSD update practices. My system admin
>> experience comes from other platforms (VMS, linux and other unix) so I
>> have been paying attention to the conversations that are mentioning
>> the *.pkgnew and *.pkgsave files as they seem a bit less intuitive
>> than on the other platforms. For some it may be natural to go looking
>> for these leftover telltales but they may represent important but
>> neglected potential time-bombs for the less familiar.
>
> OpenVMS and Linux do create these files. OpenVMS increments the version
> (;2 or ;3) or drops a TEMPLATE file. Linux uses .dpkg-dist and .dpkg-old
> or .rpmnew and .rpmsave. However, it is a not a ticking time bomb, so
> they do not tell you and you have not noticed.
>
> Everyone is using roughly the same three-way merge strategy, we just
> tell you about the failure case because of our culture which prizes
> thorough docs. We do not want to make a big deal out of it because
> it is already causing misunderstanding.
Mostly (always?) I've seen these files for FreeBSD-base types of
materials, not port-packages.
I would have thought that prizing making sure the system ends up as
intended would have been the point. I like the fact that the files are
there when there is uncertainty and I do check them and deal with doing
updates and deleting the extra files afterwards. For me, mostly it has
ended up being picking between files, rather than actual merges of content.
But as I read a few posts, some folks are ending up with systems that
partially are not as expected that they notice sometime later after
operating in the odd context, not up front, and they did not know to
check up front as part of their upgrade/install process.
Variations on:
find -s / \
\( -name \*.pkgnew -or -name \*.pkgsave -or -name .pkgtemp.\* \) \
-exec ls -lodT {} \; \
| more
can be of use.
>
> Best,
> Alex
>
>
--
===
Mark Millard
marklmi at yahoo.com
home |
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