From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu May 1 17:08:50 2014 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:1900:2254:206a::19:1]) (using TLSv1 with cipher ADH-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id D008BA79 for ; Thu, 1 May 2014 17:08:50 +0000 (UTC) Received: from icp-osb-irony-out2.external.iinet.net.au (icp-osb-irony-out2.external.iinet.net.au [203.59.1.218]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 539AC1433 for ; Thu, 1 May 2014 17:08:49 +0000 (UTC) X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Filtered: true X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Result: AqUJAIt+YlPL1iiI/2dsb2JhbABaDoJ4T6sdAQEBAQEEAZJMhz6BEhZ0giUBAQEDAQECNz8FCwsNARMMCBEPBRQEMRMJiDAHDsl9F4VWiHwHCoMagRUElTmBGYJchkw/i2SBdH9SKw X-IronPort-AV: E=Sophos;i="4.97,966,1389715200"; d="scan'208";a="210514788" Received: from unknown (HELO smtp.phoenix) ([203.214.40.136]) by icp-osb-irony-out2.iinet.net.au with ESMTP; 02 May 2014 01:08:47 +0800 Received: by smtp.phoenix (Postfix, from userid 1001) id 763EF806; Fri, 2 May 2014 03:08:47 +1000 (EST) Date: Fri, 2 May 2014 03:08:47 +1000 From: andrew clarke To: Paul Mather Subject: Re: Latest 9.2-RELEASE-p5 update keeps wanting to install /boot/kernel/linker.hints Message-ID: <20140501170847.GA29302@ozzmosis.com> References: <51EB2D64-1000-404B-BB63-8BB6F9D72A01@gromit.dlib.vt.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <51EB2D64-1000-404B-BB63-8BB6F9D72A01@gromit.dlib.vt.edu> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.23 (2014-03-12) Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.17 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 01 May 2014 17:08:50 -0000 On Thu 2014-05-01 11:28:16 UTC-0400, Paul Mather (freebsd-lists@gromit.dlib.vt.edu) wrote: > I used freebsd-update to apply the latest security updates to bring > several FreeBSD/amd64 systems to 9.2-RELEASE-p5. Unfortunately, the > subsequent "freebsd-update cron" run reported there were still updates > available: > > ===== > [[...]] > > The following files will be updated as part of updating to 9.2-RELEASE-p5: > /boot/kernel/linker.hints > ===== > > However, no matter how many times I run "freebsd-update fetch install" > it still says /boot/kernel/linker.hints needs to be updated. > > Is anyone else experiencing this? > > I even replaced my /boot/kernel with a stock 9.2-RELEASE kernel.txz > distribution and updated that with freebsd-update but still get the > same result. > > I really would rather not have "freebsd-update cron" bug me every day > to update a file that it just wants to keep updating again after I've > updated it. :-) A quick googling shows this is quite an old bug! Short answer: It's annoying but you can safely ignore it. Long answer: linker.hints is actually generated locally when freebsd-update runs "kldxref -R /boot/". The problem is then sometimes the local checksum doesn't match the freebsd-update server's remote checksum of linker.hints, because kldxref in 9.2-REL does not take into account that the order of a directory can be different between machines/filesystems. A patch was submitted to 9-stable & 10-stable in Dec 2013: http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=182098 I think the only way to fix this properly is for the FreeBSD team to backport the kldxref.c patch to 9.2-REL and issue it as 9.2-REL-p6. The machines generating the freebsd-update files need the kldxref patch for local and remote checksums of linker.hints to match; it's not enough to just patch kldxref on your local machine. Regards Andrew