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.
