I may be wrong, but ... Do this order: make buildworld make buildkernel make installkernel reboot make installworld
I am going to attempt the above in order as stated. I have read UPDATING, have the handbook open. One thing I am confused about: The next line after my new text states that this should give me a new config. My understanding is that buildworld will build the system, but not install it. Am I correct in saying that if the world is not installed, then the new config will not be installed either?
I apologize, I'm forgetting things and giving you half-correct information all over the place. First off ... the handbook is your authoritative reference on this, if anything I say conflicts with the handbook, I'm most likely wrong.
buildworld builds everything except the kernel and puts it all in /usr/obj, thus there are no changes to your running system. buildkernel is similar (it builds the kernel and puts it in /usr/obj) but it uses the utilities that are in /usr/obj instead of your running sytem, that's why you must always buildworld first. At this point, nothing on your running system has changed. You can buildworld and buildkernel on a live system without affecting its operation. When you installkernel, it copies /kernel to /kernel.old, then installs the kernel it built with buildkernel as /kernel. It also installs kernel modules in the /modules directory. At this point your system has changed ... but getting it back to where it was involves copying /kernel.old to /kernel and /modules.old to /modules ... not too hard. The changes don't take effect until you reboot, though. If, apon reboot, things don't look good, you can backtrack easily by booting the kernel.old and doing the copying described above. If everything looks good, you do installworld. Installworld copys a lot of stuff to it's proper place. I have no idea what all files are altered, but there are LOTs of them. Reverting an installworld is a LOT of work! But it is doable ... I've done it, so don't think that all is lost if something goes wrong, it's just that it's probably easier to reinstall the system and restore from backup.
There's a step that I left out: mergemaster. Mergemaster creates a temporary copy of the files that belong in /etc. (make a backup of /etc before running mergemaster) and then allows you to selectively install whatever files you need. It goes through each file that should be in /etc, compares it to what is currently in /etc and tells you whether it needs updated or not. This is the most difficult and easiest step to screw up. If you install the new /etc/passwd, for example, you'll lose any users you've added, so you'll probably want to merge that file in. Some other examples are /etc/printcap, /etc/group, /etc/hosts. On the other hand, there are some startup scripts in /etc that you almost always want to update, such as /etc/rc, and everything in /etc/defaults. This is why it's so important to backup /etc before using mergemaster, so you can easily back out of a mistake. Using mergemaster is important! Don't skip this step.
Hope this helps clear up some of the confusion I created.
-- Bill Moran Potential Technologies http://www.potentialtech.com
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