From owner-freebsd-questions Sun Oct 14 8:58:18 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from guru.mired.org (okc-65-31-203-60.mmcable.com [65.31.203.60]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 5731B37B406 for ; Sun, 14 Oct 2001 08:58:13 -0700 (PDT) Received: (qmail 36116 invoked by uid 100); 14 Oct 2001 15:58:06 -0000 From: Mike Meyer MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: <15305.46606.130325.710925@guru.mired.org> Date: Sun, 14 Oct 2001 10:58:06 -0500 To: swear@blarg.net (Gary W. Swearingen) Cc: "Doug Reynolds" , questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: cvsup In-Reply-To: References: <15304.58886.215474.233433@guru.mired.org> X-Mailer: VM 6.90 under 21.1 (patch 14) "Cuyahoga Valley" XEmacs Lucid X-face: "5Mnwy%?j>IIV\)A=):rjWL~NB2aH[}Yq8Z=u~vJ`"(,&SiLvbbz2W`;h9L,Yg`+vb1>RG% *h+%X^n0EZd>TM8_IB;a8F?(Fb"lw'IgCoyM.[Lg#r\ Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Gary W. Swearingen types: > Mike Meyer writes: > > After that, you reboot to insure that the new kernel will boot. If it > > fails for some reason, backing out the kernel is pretty easy, and you > > have your old, running system to rebuild things on. > ... > > That makes sense. If the old world isn't compatible with the new > kernel, it will probably still boot and run enough to give you > confidence to install the new world, mergemaster, and final reboot. > (Your kind of detailed explanation wouldn't be bad in the handbook.) I'll consider submitting a pr.... > I wonder if, with today's huge disks, it wouldn't be good to have > an option in the build software that keeps the old kernel, the old > world, and the old config files (during a make kernel world merge) > somewhere where it could be easily restored (or maybe just choosen) from > the boot prompt. The two build processes don't touch the the running system in any way. installkernel already saves the old kernel and modules as kernel.old and modules.old. An option for mergemaster to save /etc would probably be easy, and useful; a note to DougB@FreeBSD.org or a PR with patches (it's a perl script) would be the thing to make that happen. Personally, I just run an incremental backup before doing the installworld/mergemaster step. Saving world - that's a bit harder. > (Also: Aren't there EVER problems booting a good new > kernel with an old world - even when just booting to single user? Do > you sometimes HAVE to install new kernel and new world at same time?) That brings up a point I meant to mention, but forgot. The only supported configuration is a kernel and world built together. However, changes are incremental, so the more frequently you do the builds, the less likely you are to have problems running a kernel and world from different builds. Conversely, the longer you wait, the more likely you are to have problems. To answer your question, the only thing that has to work to boot single user is the shell. I'd expect the shell from an X.0 to work on any X.Y. Across versions - it gets a bit more difficult. Which is why you seen people recommending going to 3.latest before trying to go to 4.0. http://www.mired.org/home/mwm/ Q: How do you make the gods laugh? A: Tell them your plans. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message