On 14/06/2012 10:41, Leslie Jensen wrote: > When one recives the > > FreeBSD Errata Notice or > > FreeBSD Security Advisory > > The instruction is to do: > > > # freebsd-update fetch > > # freebsd-update install > > > > From earlier discussions on this list about the -px number not changing, > I usually rebuild and install the kernel. > > My question is: > > Do I need to reboot after # freebsd-update install or can I rebuild and > install the kernel before the reboot?
freebsd-update will fetch any updates to /usr/src, so any time after you've done 'freebsd-update install' you can build and install a new kernel with all the security patches applied. Given that you are only applying security updates within one release branch and you are using a kernel configuration that has been well tested, you should be fine to just install the new kernel before rebooting at the end of your update procedure. However, if you're going to be doing anything more ambitious (switching RELEASE version, modifying the kernel config non-trivially), then you should adopt a more cautious approach. You need to make sure you've got a world+kernel combination that still works after freebsd-update has applied all its changes to the system before you try booting to your customised kernel. In the case of major version upgrades, use the default kernels that freebsd-update supplies during the actual upgrade so you can be assured that you have a working combination (working in the sense that you can log in and build/install a new kernel; if you need a custom kernel to support some odd bits of hardware then those temporarily won't work). Once you've got the system up and running after updating, then go ahead and build and install your new kernel. Should it fail to boot properly, you will be able to back-out to the previous known-working kernel. Cheers, Matthew -- Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil. PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey
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