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Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2007 13:05:14 -0400
From: Kris Kennaway <kris@obsecurity.org>
To: Ade Lovett <ade@FreeBSD.org>
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Cc: ports@freebsd.org, Warner Losh <imp@harmony.bsdimp.com>,
	Kris Kennaway <kris@obsecurity.org>
Subject: Re: Uggg!
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On Fri, Jun 01, 2007 at 02:15:48AM -0700, Ade Lovett wrote:
> 
> On Jun 01, 2007, at 01:33 , Kris Kennaway wrote:
> >Download the packages from the FTP site and either reinstall them or
> >extract the +CONTENTS.  This will work best if you don't have local
> >make.conf customizations, otherwise you will see variance.
> 
> Actually, this does bring up a meta-issue that ports, pkgsrc,  
> portage, all suffer from.
> 
> What happens when the metadata gets blown away (by accident, hardware  
> crash, flaming meteor from Mars, etc.)
> 
> Is there anything we can do to mitigate this?
> 
> Yes.  It's an open-ended question.  I also have no obvious solution.   
> But I do see the need for such.

I am not really sure there is a solution: unless the user has used a
precompiled "standard" package is not just representing data that is
cached from somewhere else and can be reconstructed, it is usually
unique to a particular build.  Even if they use a standard package it
may have changed in the meantime.

Best solution is to back up /var/db/pkg if it is in danger of deletion
by a wanton admin :)

Kris