Re: Three FreeBSD 6 questions

[Pieter de Goeje]

On Wednesday 01 November 2006 12:53, SiteRollout.com wrote:
> Many thanks for all the replies guys. I used the following method pasted
> below remotely without having to boot up in single user mode and it worked
> fine to upgrade from 6.0 to 6.1/6.2, so I'm sharing with all in case anyone
> needs to do the same.
>
> However I want to downgrade from 6.2 PRERELEASE to 6.1 as I'm getting this
> message on one server:
>
> This system is running FreeBSD 6.2-PRERELEASE.
> FreeBSD Update is only designed to track FreeBSD Security
> and Errata branches and cannot update this system
>
> 1.) Do I need to downgrade to get the latest security updates?
No, to get the security fixes you should upgrade the system to the 
latest -STABLE by doing a cvsup and then rebuilding your system.

>
> 2.) Can I "rm -fr /usr/src/" to delete everything and pull the latest files
> via cvsup again to perform a clean install of 6.0 STABLE(which is currently
> 6.1)
Basically yes, however there's no such thing as 6.0-STABLE anymore, I guess 
you mean 6.1-RELEASE (RELENG_6_1 in your cvsup file). You cannot use FreeBSD 
Update when you have built your system from source. If you want to use 
FreeBSD Update then you'll have to reinstall the system with a release cd.

Good Luck!

-- Pieter de Goeje
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RE: Three FreeBSD 6 questions

[SiteRollout.com]

Many thanks for all the replies guys. I used the following method pasted
below remotely without having to boot up in single user mode and it worked
fine to upgrade from 6.0 to 6.1/6.2, so I'm sharing with all in case anyone
needs to do the same.

However I want to downgrade from 6.2 PRERELEASE to 6.1 as I'm getting this
message on one server:

This system is running FreeBSD 6.2-PRERELEASE.
FreeBSD Update is only designed to track FreeBSD Security
and Errata branches and cannot update this system

1.) Do I need to downgrade to get the latest security updates?

2.) Can I "rm -fr /usr/src/" to delete everything and pull the latest files
via cvsup again to perform a clean install of 6.0 STABLE(which is currently
6.1)

##

===
Remote server system upgrade:
===

Edit cvsupfile

# nano /etc/cvsupfile

*default  host=cvsup2.FreeBSD.org
*default  base=/usr
*default  prefix=/usr
*default  release=cvs
*default  tag=none
*default  delete use-rel-suffix
*default tag=RELENG_6
src-all
ports-all
doc-all

# cvsup -g -L2 /etc/cvsupfile

# make buildworld

Now edit a custom kernel if you need to make specific changes

# uname -a
FreeBSD server9.site-rollout.co.uk 5.3-RELEASE FreeBSD 5.3-RELEASE
#0: Fri Nov  5 04:19:18 UTC 2004 
[EMAIL PROTECTED]:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/GENERIC  i386

# cd /usr/src/sys/i386/conf
# cp GENERIC FOOBAR

# cd /usr/src/
# make buildkernel KERNCONF=FOOBAR

# make installkernel KERNCONF=FOOBAR

Lets backup your existing /etc directory just incase something goes wrong.

# cp -Rp /etc /home/backupetc

# mergemaster -p

Add following entry to /etc/groups if it doesn't exist

audit:*:77:

# make installworld

Now all of the system userland will be installed. This will take 5-10 mins
or less. Once the system userland has been installed you need to do the most
important step and also most confusing at times. You need to run
'mergemaster'

# mergemaster

You will see the mergemaster application start comparing your existing /etc
directory config files and passwd and group files and other files and it
will start prompting you if you want to either install the files or delete
them or merge them. For the majority of the files you can just tell them to
safely install.

DO NOT EVER INSTALL A NEW master.passwd, passwd or group files. You also be
careful about replacing the /etc/mail/aliases and /etc/rc.firewall firewall
file if you have a custom IPFW firewall created. If you do you will lock
yourself out. If you do happen to install a new password file you will need
copy back your old one from the backup you just made.

% At prompt asking you what you to do or showing you part of a file. Press
'q' and then 'i' to install the file or 'd' to delete it.

Just select 'q' and then 'i' for the most of them except the files I
mentioned above or any other files you have edited with custom entries for
your system.

You will then be prompted to build the new device tree if you installed the
MAKEDEV during mergemaster ( you should have ) select 'y' and let it build.
It will then maybe ask you to rebuild the 'aliases' file. Select 'y' After
that it will ask you if you want to delete the temp root directory. Select
'y'.

You now have a updated system and need to reboot. Be sure to reboot shortly
or it will cause possbile problems if you do this from a remote host.

# shutdown -r +1

The system will reboot and you can login and startup any services that you
need to.

If the system does not come back up and you have tried installing a firewall
have a technician look at the local console and tell them to soft reboot the
server with 'ctrl + alt + del'. When he system is booting up you can tell it
you want load a custom kernel by pressing any key other then 'enter' when
prompted. Then you type.

% unload
% boot kernel.GENERIC
or
% boot kernel.old
% boot kernel.prev

This depends on what your old kernel file was called most systems will have
a kernel.GENERIC on them unless you removed it.

That will get the system backup and you can fix any errors with the
firewall.

Finally, delete any unwanted files in /user/

##

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Re: Three FreeBSD 6 questions

[Roland Smith]

On Thu, Oct 26, 2006 at 12:32:43PM +0100, SiteRollout.com wrote:
> I'm new to this list, so here's a hello, how are you to everyone on the
> list!
Welcome!
  

> And which file do I change to use a different release, and how must I update
> the system to pull in this latest release?
> 
> 2.) I'm a bit confused as to updating the system. As I understand, there are
> 3 areas which require updates:
>  
> i. Ports

You could use portsnap(1) to keep your ports database up to date.

> ii. Security updates
> iii. Kernel updates
>  
> I know how to perform the first two, but for kernel updates I can't seen to
> find a consistent unified method with talk of the "traditional" way and the
> "latest" way. What is the best way to keep my FreeBSD 6.x system up2date?

This is covered in the handbook, and at the end of /usr/src/UPDATING.

FreeBSD updates both the kernel and the base system.

Basically,

1) cvsup(1) your source to RELENG_6 (for STABLE) or RELENG_6_1 for just
   security updates.
2) Create a custom kernel config file, if needed, and put it in 
   /usr/src/sys//conf/FOO for example.
3) cd /usr/src;
4) make buildworld
3) make kernel # Add 'KERNCONF=FOO' to use your configuration.
4) reboort into single user mode
5) mergemaster -p
6) cd /usr/src; make installworld
7) mergemaster
8) reboot

Roland
-- 
R.F.Smith   http://www.xs4all.nl/~rsmith/
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Re: Three FreeBSD 6 questions

[Ivan Voras]

SiteRollout.com wrote:


1.) How exactly do I know whether I am running the STABLE or CURRENT
release, as when I run uname I can only see the following relevant info:
 
FreeBSD server4.domain.info 6.0-RELEASE FreeBSD 6.0-RELEASE #0: Sat Sep 23

13:52:48 UTC 2006 [EMAIL PROTECTED]

domain.info:/usr/src/sys/i386/compile/SERVER4  i386


If you installed from an release CD, you're running release, and will by 
default continue to run it until you manually upgrade.


A computer running stable would print something like this for uname:

FreeBSD lara.xx.xx 6.1-STABLE FreeBSD 6.1-STABLE #11: Wed Sep  6 
17:57:59 CEST 2006 [EMAIL PROTECTED]:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/LARA  i386


And a computer running CURRENT would say:

FreeBSD server.xx.xx 7.0-CURRENT FreeBSD 7.0-CURRENT #3: Thu Oct 23
10:28:46 CEST 2006 [EMAIL PROTECTED]:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/GW  i386

Note that "RELEASE", "STABLE" and "CURRENT" are only common names for 
specific branches. There are plenty of documentation on which is which, 
but the short and dirty version is: RELEASE versions are officially 
meant to be widely used and have gone through testing before published. 
STABLE is the "low-risk development" branch, and from time to time the 
STABLE branch is frozen and a new release created from this branch (e.g. 
6.0, 6.1, 6.2 are releases from 6-STABLE). CURRENT is bleeding edge, may 
cause your computer to explode, etc. Periodically, a CURRENT branch will 
be re-designated as STABLE and a new CURRENT will be started (thus in 
the future there will be 7-STABLE, 7.0-RELEASE and 8.0-CURRENT). In 
addition to those exist obsolete STABLE branches not meant to be used on 
new installations (now obsoleted are 4-STABLE and 5-STABLE, in the 
future when 7.x becomes STABLE, 6-STABLE will be one of the obsolete 
branches).



And which file do I change to use a different release, and how must I update
the system to pull in this latest release?


1. Install cvsup (or more likely cvsup-without-gui)
2. Copy /usr/share/examples/cvsup/*supfile to /etc/
3. Edit those file to change the cvsup server name (see handbook for 
available servers) and version you want to upgrade to

4. Run cvsup on those file(s)


2.) I'm a bit confused as to updating the system. As I understand, there are
3 areas which require updates:
 
i. Ports

ii. Security updates
iii. Kernel updates


Security updates and kernel updates are the same, all updated with a 
single cvsup. This updates everything shipped with FreeBSD by default 
(including kernel). Study carefully what is and what is not a part of 
the default ("base") system - for example sshd, sendmail and bind are in 
it, but procmail or apache are not. There are no separate packages for 
applications in the base system.


Ports (i.e. third party applications, which is everything from apache to 
vim to zsh) are updated separately. The ports tree (which contains 
ports/packages definitions) is updated with cvsup or portsnap, and then 
individual packages can be updated either manually or with portupgrade.



I know how to perform the first two, but for kernel updates I can't seen to
find a consistent unified method with talk of the "traditional" way and the
"latest" way. What is the best way to keep my FreeBSD 6.x system up2date?


Edit /etc/standard-supfile (as described in the steps above), run `cvsup 
/etc/standard-supfile`, cd to /usr/src and run:


# make buildworld<-- this will compile the userland ("base" system)
# make buildkernel   <-- this will compile the kernel. See manual about 
how to create and specify kernel config file.

# make installkernel <-- this will install the kernel
# make installworld  <-- this will install the userland

Those are the instructions for the latest recommended way to do it. To 
complete the upgrade, you'll need to run `mergemaster` - read about it 
in handbook and its man page.


Mostly you can upgrade the system without problems while running in 
multiuser/production mode (except of course for reboots to load the new 
kernel and deamons), but the official way is to do it in single user 
mode and with several passes of mergemaster.



3.) One of my new FreeBSD 6.0 servers went down recently. This was odd as
the actual server was hardly busy, but filesystem errors came up when
booting up the server. After running fsck, server would be up for about an
hour and then go down again. This kept happening and so I initially thought
it was due to overheating. However cooling was all good, so after further
investigation and googling I diagnosed the problem as being the background
fsck which for some reason was failing, causing the server to shutdown and
upon reboot requiring a manual fsck.


See if you're low on disk space. AFAIK there was a problem in 6.0 (and 
maybe 6.1?) with background fsck (actually, the snapshot feature) when 
disk space is low.


Of course, there also might be a hardware failure somewhere.

If/when you get comfor

Re: Three FreeBSD 6 questions

[Philipp Ost]

SiteRollout.com wrote:

Two questions to kickstart my participation on this list:
 
1.) How exactly do I know whether I am running the STABLE or CURRENT

release, as when I run uname I can only see the following relevant info:
 
FreeBSD server4.domain.info 6.0-RELEASE FreeBSD 6.0-RELEASE #0: Sat Sep 23

13:52:48 UTC 2006 [EMAIL PROTECTED]

domain.info:/usr/src/sys/i386/compile/SERVER4  i386


You are running 6.0-RELEASE. The current release is 6.1 - 6.2 is coming 
out soon[tm].


CURRENT is bleeding-edge development - you perhaps won't run it on a 
production server as it may crash at some point in time due to new 
features ;)




And which file do I change to use a different release, and how must I update
the system to pull in this latest release?


You use cvsup(1) to update your local source-tree (and the 
ports-collection). In cvsup's configuration file(s), you specify what 
`version' of FreeBSD (RELEASE, STABLE, CURRENT) you want. ;)




2.) I'm a bit confused as to updating the system. As I understand, there are
3 areas which require updates:
 
i. Ports

ii. Security updates
iii. Kernel updates
 
I know how to perform the first two, but for kernel updates I can't seen to

find a consistent unified method with talk of the "traditional" way and the
"latest" way. What is the best way to keep my FreeBSD 6.x system up2date?


The latter.



3.) One of my new FreeBSD 6.0 servers went down recently. This was odd as
the actual server was hardly busy, but filesystem errors came up when
booting up the server. After running fsck, server would be up for about an
hour and then go down again. This kept happening and so I initially thought
it was due to overheating. However cooling was all good, so after further
investigation and googling I diagnosed the problem as being the background
fsck which for some reason was failing, causing the server to shutdown and
upon reboot requiring a manual fsck.
 
I've fixed this by disabling the background fsck and forcing the bootup fsck

in /etc/rc.conf. At least then if the server goes down again it will fix
itself with a full fsck when booting up. My question is whether this is
okay, and has anyone experienced this same problem with their system? And
why has the background fsck been failing? Where can i find further info?


Have you tried fscking your disks in single-user mode?


And as Joe already said: Read The Handbook - it answers a lot of 
questions (if not all). :) You should have a local copy of it in 
/usr/share/doc/handbook/



HTH,
Philipp
--
www.familie-ost.info/~pj
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Re: Three FreeBSD 6 questions

[Joe Holden]

SiteRollout.com wrote:
> I'm new to this list, so here's a hello, how are you to everyone on the
> list!
Welcome!

> I'm coming to FreeBSD from a Linux background, so whilst some things are
> pretty similar, some things are pretty different.
Excellent!

> 1.) How exactly do I know whether I am running the STABLE or CURRENT
> release, as when I run uname I can only see the following relevant info:
>  
> FreeBSD server4.domain.info 6.0-RELEASE FreeBSD 6.0-RELEASE #0: Sat Sep 23
> 13:52:48 UTC 2006 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> 
> domain.info:/usr/src/sys/i386/compile/SERVER4  i386
You would be running -RELEASE, which is a snapshot of -STABLE at a
particular point in time (Someone correct me if i'm wrong).

> And which file do I change to use a different release, and how must I update
> the system to pull in this latest release?
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/cvsup.html is
a good starting point, I recommend you read the handbook entirely at
least once!

> 2.) I'm a bit confused as to updating the system. As I understand, there are
> 3 areas which require updates:
>  
> i. Ports
> ii. Security updates
> iii. Kernel updates
>  
> I know how to perform the first two, but for kernel updates I can't seen to
> find a consistent unified method with talk of the "traditional" way and the
> "latest" way. What is the best way to keep my FreeBSD 6.x system up2date?
The "kernel" updates are all part of the cvsup process, as its including
in -src, you base system and kernel must always be in line, its not
"modular" like Linux is.

> 3.) One of my new FreeBSD 6.0 servers went down recently. This was odd as
> the actual server was hardly busy, but filesystem errors came up when
> booting up the server. After running fsck, server would be up for about an
> hour and then go down again. This kept happening and so I initially thought
> it was due to overheating. However cooling was all good, so after further
> investigation and googling I diagnosed the problem as being the background
> fsck which for some reason was failing, causing the server to shutdown and
> upon reboot requiring a manual fsck.
>  
> I've fixed this by disabling the background fsck and forcing the bootup fsck
> in /etc/rc.conf. At least then if the server goes down again it will fix
> itself with a full fsck when booting up. My question is whether this is
> okay, and has anyone experienced this same problem with their system? And
> why has the background fsck been failing? Where can i find further info?
>  
> Any help with these questions would be greatly appreciated.
>  
> Regards,
> Suhail.

Thanks,
Joe



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