* STeve Andre' <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [2007-12-27 15:43]: > On Thursday 27 December 2007 09:17:37 new_guy wrote: > > I would like to install OpenBSD *once* and keep it patched and secured for > > many years there after (5 - 7 years) in a production environment. Would it > > be feasible to get a snapshot today and follow -current for many years w/o > > having to reinstall? Basically, this approach would skip -stable and > > -release and always be -current. I understand the implications of being > > current and that things might change and break and may need re-configuring > > on occasion. I'm OK with that... I just don't want to reinstall a -release > > every year... although I'll still buy CDs as they are released to support > > the project.
that will work fine as long as you keep an eye on current.html and maybe source-changes, it is what many of us do. > There are two problems with what you are talking about. The first is > that by its vary nature -current is a moving target, and there could be > a time when upgrading to the latest -current for a security fix might > introduce some new feature which you don't want. why wouldn't you want a new feature? we're being extremely careful to not break existing behaviour wherever possible. of course, that is not always possible, but exceptions are rare and well documented. > The second problem are flag days, when something has changed such > that you almost certainly want to reinstall the OS. The move from > a.out to ELF binary format is a good example of that. ah yeah, and that happens every second week. reality check: how often does that happen really? the last "real" flag day on i386 was the a.out -> ELF move. When was that? 3.3 I think. almost 5 years ago. -- Henning Brauer, [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] BS Web Services, http://bsws.de Full-Service ISP - Secure Hosting, Mail and DNS Services Dedicated Servers, Rootservers, Application Hosting - Hamburg & Amsterdam
