Re: Stable tag will be slipped Sunday and release engineering will begin Monday

[Bill Hacker <wbh@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Joerg Sonnenberger wrote:

> On Tue, Apr 05, 2005 at 03:43:54PM +0000, Rahul Siddharthan wrote:
>
> > That's a thought.  But then you need to copy large quantities of world
> > into the jail -- not only base system but an unpredictable number of
> > packages.  Rather clumsy to do this, and keep the jail world uptodate,
> > every time you want to install a port.  But perhaps one can use nullfs
> > or unionfs for that.  In fact I think that's basically what pkg_comp
> > does.
>
>
> Check the scripts. I have to do exactly four things:
> (a) install a jail and keep it to current
> (b) install a ports+dfports tree with the scripts
> (c) specify which ports should be build and customize the settings
> (d) run update.sh
>
> The result is a directory with current packages, ready to install.
>
> Joerg

Safer, cheaper, and easier to just use a separate box.

Or - so long as it is 'vanilla' stuff that we have been running and 
upgrading for
years, just do the upgrade on the 'spare', standby, or backup boxen *first*,
beat on 'em, fix any problems, let them settle down, do the critical 
ones later.

Or - One can usually mirror, save, and restore if/as/when need be,
the entire 'code bearing' portion of a server faster and with less risk,
than messing with the jail and the 'special' needs it has (which may 
change).

Or - Keep two /usr equivalents, say /usr and /wrk.
cpdup /usr to /wrk before rolling in the changes.
Same for other mount points, as needed.

All you have to do to restore (all or any part) is either cpdup
/wrk back to /usr or - if hung, edit /etc/fstab and reboot
w/o overwriting the mess so you can inspect the problem
at your leisure.

Keeping 'alternative' /etc/fstab's and a 'cp' saves even the editing

A lazy man with posterior scar tissue here,
but not a lot of *new* teeth-marks   ... or downtime...

;-)

Bill