On Mon, Dec 19, 2011 at 10:34:12PM -0500, Nick Holland wrote: > On 12/19/11 15:55, Lars Kotthoff wrote: > > Hi list, > > > > the OpenBSD upgrade pages carry a warning at the top "Note: Upgrades are > > only > > supported from one release to the release immediately following it. Do not > > skip > > releases." > > > > What's the reason for this warning? I've had a look at the upgrade steps > > and the > > only thing that seems to assume a certain system configuration is the > > update of > > the configuration files using the patches. > > As Henning indicated...it's what we test. > There are 17 platforms for OpenBSD. There's a lot to test for each > release, testing upgrades from 4.8 to 5.0 just doubled our > work...pointlessly. Documenting the two-release process just doubled MY > work. And you want four steps. No. > > > This shouldn't be a problem when > > using sysmerge though, should it? > > By that statement, I presume you audited the code for that? > no, actually, I didn't believe that. :) > > > To be clear, I'm not intending to start a flame war about OpenBSD upgrade > > processes, I was just wondering why releases shouldn't be skipped. I'm > > looking > > to upgrade a machine running 4.6 to 5.0 and would obviously prefer to do > > this in > > one step instead of four. > > This REALLY falls under the category of, "if you gotta ask, don't. Just > don't." > > The OpenBSD upgrade process is really simple (so simple, *I* could write > the process! Come to think of it, I do!), but if you are asking "can I > get away with ...", rather than understanding the process well enough to > answer your own question, don't. > > Consider it punishment for not having kept the system up to date. You > SHOULD have done those three missing updates anyway...now you have to do > them all in one hour. :) > > And, if there's any question this isn't just a snarky answer (I'm not > denying it is ALSO a snarky answer), if you look at the update > instructions for any arbitrary version of OpenBSD, you will note there > is more to it than just "run sysmerge". When you start jumping > versions, you may see interesting issues from those steps...and little > problems that will bite you in the ass and you won't be sure which step > you skipped did it. > > Me? If I had console on the machine, I'd have no trouble taking your > system directly from 4.6 to 5.0 (and the console would be just in case I > got cocky and screwed up :). But then, I understand the process pretty > well (we hope!). I understand it well enough that I suggest YOU take > the advice. > > Nick. >
Doing 1 upgrade over multiple releases vs several upgrades is, in addition to the excellent reasons pointed out by Nick, not worth testing since each upgrade takes 5-10 minutes (on most, reasonably modern archs). And that's with running sysmerge, removing old files, backing up the new config files, etc. If one is just passing through I assume upgrading packages doesn't figure into it until the 'final' upgrade. Why would we waste hundreds of man hours testing upgrading over multiple releases to save you 30 or 40 minutes? I mean, it's not like you have to download all those files. You do buy CD's, right? .... Ken
