RE: Release engineering confusion
-Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Steve Bertrand Sent: Wednesday, November 16, 2005 4:52 PM To: 'David Kirchner' Cc: 'FreeBSD Questions' Subject: RE: Release engineering confusion -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of David Kirchner Sent: Wednesday, November 16, 2005 7:45 PM To: Steve Bertrand Cc: RW; FreeBSD Questions Subject: Re: Release engineering confusion On 11/16/05, Steve Bertrand [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Thank you. However, that entire page out of the handbook pretty much clarifies that a production environment should *not* track either STABLE or CURRENT. So I'm assuming I'm best off with RELENG_6_0 etc, etc? Does anyone here actually run STABLE or CURRENT in a production environment? I've personally had the most luck with RELENG_4 which is still my main box, but now my curiosity has got the best of me. Steve Ultimately it depends on how much downtime and difficulty you're willing to endure, just in case the -STABLE branch ends up not working for your servers for some particular reason. We use -RELEASE almost exclusively (we have one -STABLE machine, because we needed a newer version of a kernel driver) as we manage hundreds of servers, and there's no one -STABLE release (to properly describe the -STABLE version you're using you have to have the date and time of the cvsup, as opposed to -RELEASE versions being like 5.4-RELEASE-p9). It's easier, and thus more reliable, for us to have stable(heh) version strings. I can appreciate the fact it's easier to follow one string for so many servers. If you're just working with a handful of servers, -STABLE would probably be fine, as long as you have backups and know how to revert to previous versions when it becomes necessary. I do only have a handful of servers, however thousands of users, and indeed, I do have backups. Hi Steve, We have the same thing - I NEVER upgrade a live server. I ALWAYS build a brand new install on a spare or a new box then copy over the data in one fell swoop and swap IP addresses between the new server and the old one. With the cost of server hardware today it's very compelling to buy new anyhow. I have a customer I'm building a mailserver today for who just bought a brand new rack mounted clone, Intel brand motherboard, with daul 200GB mirrored SATA drives and 1 gig of ECC ram for about $1200 bucks. I'm running FBSD 6.0 on it and I've run a passle of MySQL test suites on it and it kicks the shit out of my 1 year old servers that cost 3 times that. And he's not even running 10,000 rpm drives on it. The problem arises in a criticality that 20 minutes of downtime would lead to a severe problemwhich brings up another good question...how do YOU revert back to a previous release? If you manage so many servers, I'd love to know what type of routine you'd use to revert back (and so would many others I'd think ;) Very scary stuff. By doing the server swap stuff I do I am able to run extensive tests on the new server, new OS and new applications, BEFORE bringing it online. The old server it replaces goes into quarentine and isn't touched until a month has elapsed, just in case we need to revert back to it in a hurry. I never move to a new release until after extensively testing it AND the applications I've built on it. I know a lot of work seems to have gone into making FBSD upgradable -on-the-fly- but the applications we run on it are the important thing and the developers of those apps are often rather lackadasical about updates. Particularly in the case of Perl modules - many of our apps have lots of dependencies on many modules and I'd say 3/4 of the Perl modules in the ports trees build with dozens of compiler complaints about miscasting, pointers into ints, and that sort of thing. There seems to be a lot of those programmers that either ignore portability issues, or make assumptions that it's going to be run on x86 stuff, or just plain don't know how to code. Ted ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Release engineering confusion
On Wed, Nov 16, 2005 at 06:16:31PM -0500, Steve Bertrand wrote: Hi all, I'm a little confused about which tags to use in my supfiles for cvsup. I've installed 6.0-RELEASE, and really want to stay with STABLE. AFAICT, in my supfile, I should have the following to do so: *default tag=RELENG_6_0 ...is that correct? No, that's the 6.0 release branch (security fixes and critical errors only) I used this, and after a buildworld I got an error. I'm not concerned about that right now though. Also, is RELENG_6 considered to be the most current, up-to-date release of the 6.0 track, as opposed to STABLE? RELENG_6 is 6.0-STABLE, which is 6.0 + changes that will eventually become 6.1. Kris pgpMXsG7O6Ncu.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Release engineering confusion
At 05:16 PM 11/16/2005, Steve Bertrand wrote: Hi all, I'm a little confused about which tags to use in my supfiles for cvsup. I've installed 6.0-RELEASE, and really want to stay with STABLE. AFAICT, in my supfile, I should have the following to do so: *default tag=RELENG_6_0 ...is that correct? I used this, and after a buildworld I got an error. I'm not concerned about that right now though. Also, is RELENG_6 considered to be the most current, up-to-date release of the 6.0 track, as opposed to STABLE? Steve according to the example in /usr/share/examples/cvsup: # The following line is for 6-stable. If you want 5-stable, 4-stable, # 3-stable, or 2.2-stable, change to RELENG_5, RELENG_4, RELENG_3, # or RELENG_2_2 respectively. *default release=cvs tag=RELENG_6 *default delete use-rel-suffix So I used this in my cvsup-file *default release=cvs tag=RELENG_6 and buildworld fails on libcurses.. -- J.D. Bronson Information Services West Allis Memorial Hospital Aurora Health Care - Milwaukee, Wisconsin Office: 414.978.8282 // Fax: 414.977.5299 -Taco Bell is *not* the Mexican Telephone Company- ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: Release engineering confusion
-Original Message- From: J.D. Bronson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, November 16, 2005 6:33 PM To: Steve Bertrand Cc: 'FreeBSD Questions' Subject: Re: Release engineering confusion At 05:16 PM 11/16/2005, Steve Bertrand wrote: Hi all, I'm a little confused about which tags to use in my supfiles for cvsup. I've installed 6.0-RELEASE, and really want to stay with STABLE. AFAICT, in my supfile, I should have the following to do so: *default tag=RELENG_6_0 ...is that correct? I used this, and after a buildworld I got an error. I'm not concerned about that right now though. Also, is RELENG_6 considered to be the most current, up-to-date release of the 6.0 track, as opposed to STABLE? Steve according to the example in /usr/share/examples/cvsup: # The following line is for 6-stable. If you want 5-stable, 4-stable, # 3-stable, or 2.2-stable, change to RELENG_5, RELENG_4, RELENG_3, # or RELENG_2_2 respectively. *default release=cvs tag=RELENG_6 *default delete use-rel-suffix So I used this in my cvsup-file *default release=cvs tag=RELENG_6 and buildworld fails on libcurses.. Thanks Kris, J.D., I found the same build problems on 6_0. I've subscribed to -current and -stable as I want to better track these issues...which brings me to my next question: In production (at an ISP), what is the best to follow...RELENGX_X or RELENG_X? I have 4.x, 5.x boxes in production, and this 6.x box is being prepared for the same. Tks :) Steve -- J.D. Bronson Information Services West Allis Memorial Hospital Aurora Health Care - Milwaukee, Wisconsin Office: 414.978.8282 // Fax: 414.977.5299 -Taco Bell is *not* the Mexican Telephone Company- ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: Release engineering confusion
-Original Message- From: J.D. Bronson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, November 16, 2005 6:33 PM To: Steve Bertrand Cc: 'FreeBSD Questions' Subject: Re: Release engineering confusion At 05:16 PM 11/16/2005, Steve Bertrand wrote: Hi all, I'm a little confused about which tags to use in my supfiles for cvsup. I've installed 6.0-RELEASE, and really want to stay with STABLE. AFAICT, in my supfile, I should have the following to do so: *default tag=RELENG_6_0 ...is that correct? I used this, and after a buildworld I got an error. I'm not concerned about that right now though. Also, is RELENG_6 considered to be the most current, up-to-date release of the 6.0 track, as opposed to STABLE? Steve according to the example in /usr/share/examples/cvsup: # The following line is for 6-stable. If you want 5-stable, 4-stable, # 3-stable, or 2.2-stable, change to RELENG_5, RELENG_4, RELENG_3, # or RELENG_2_2 respectively. *default release=cvs tag=RELENG_6 *default delete use-rel-suffix So I used this in my cvsup-file *default release=cvs tag=RELENG_6 and buildworld fails on libcurses.. Whoops, sorry! I went ahead of myself and said 'me too', whereas I should of said, I get fails on buildworld as well, but it wasn't there. Steve ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Release engineering confusion
On Wednesday 16 November 2005 23:38, Steve Bertrand wrote: In production (at an ISP), what is the best to follow...RELENGX_X or RELENG_X? I have 4.x, 5.x boxes in production, and this 6.x box is being prepared for the same. See the Handbook: 20.2.2.2 Who Needs FreeBSD-STABLE? ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: Release engineering confusion
In production (at an ISP), what is the best to follow...RELENGX_X or RELENG_X? I have 4.x, 5.x boxes in production, and this 6.x box is being prepared for the same. See the Handbook: 20.2.2.2 Who Needs FreeBSD-STABLE? Thank you. However, that entire page out of the handbook pretty much clarifies that a production environment should *not* track either STABLE or CURRENT. So I'm assuming I'm best off with RELENG_6_0 etc, etc? Does anyone here actually run STABLE or CURRENT in a production environment? I've personally had the most luck with RELENG_4 which is still my main box, but now my curiosity has got the best of me. Steve ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Release engineering confusion
On Nov 16, 2005, at 5:18 PM, Steve Bertrand wrote: In production (at an ISP), what is the best to follow...RELENGX_X or RELENG_X? I have 4.x, 5.x boxes in production, and this 6.x box is being prepared for the same. See the Handbook: 20.2.2.2 Who Needs FreeBSD-STABLE? Thank you. However, that entire page out of the handbook pretty much clarifies that a production environment should *not* track either STABLE or CURRENT. So I'm assuming I'm best off with RELENG_6_0 etc, etc? Does anyone here actually run STABLE or CURRENT in a production environment? I've personally had the most luck with RELENG_4 which is still my main box, but now my curiosity has got the best of me. I generally track -RELEASE but my production boxes are currently at 5.4-STABLE from a while ago since there was an issue I was trying to fix and was hoping someone had put a patch in to fix whatever my issue was :-) My issue has not shown up since and my boxes have been working fine. But in general I play it conservative and track -RELEASE Chad --- Chad Leigh -- Shire.Net LLC Your Web App and Email hosting provider [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: Release engineering confusion
-Original Message- From: Dan O'Connor [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, November 16, 2005 7:31 PM To: Steve Bertrand Cc: 'FreeBSD Questions' Subject: Re: Release engineering confusion Thank you. However, that entire page out of the handbook pretty much clarifies that a production environment should *not* track either STABLE or CURRENT. So I'm assuming I'm best off with RELENG_6_0 etc, etc? Does anyone here actually run STABLE or CURRENT in a production environment? I've personally had the most luck with RELENG_4 which is still my main box, but now my curiosity has got the best of me. Yes, production servers should track -STABLE, since it's, well, stable... -CURRENT is the development branch, so for a production server, don't use that. But RELENG_6_0 is the 6.0-RELEASE tag, and you'll never get any updates (bug fixes, security patches, etc). This is why I am confused, because as per the handbook (20.2.2.2): For these reasons, we do not recommend that you blindly track FreeBSD-STABLE, and it is particularly important that you do not update any production servers to FreeBSD-STABLE without first thoroughly testing the code in your development environment. Also in there, it states that one does NOT need to follow stable to get the latest security/bug fixes, which makes me believe that on my production network, I should track RELENG_6_X (security/bug fix), and in my devel lab, RELENG_6 (STABLE). Appreciating, but 'disagreeing' with your comment that _6_0 will NOT get the sec/bug updates from my understanding so far. It is my understanding that _6_0 will get ALL the bug/sec updates, but nothing else because it is *frozen*, making it preferrably the track to follow in a pure, 24/7/365 environment, because new 'tricks' or 'features' are not introduced here. Does that seem accurate? Steve ~Dan ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: Release engineering confusion
In production (at an ISP), what is the best to follow...RELENGX_X or RELENG_X? I have 4.x, 5.x boxes in production, and this 6.x box is being prepared for the same. See the Handbook: 20.2.2.2 Who Needs FreeBSD-STABLE? Thank you. However, that entire page out of the handbook pretty much clarifies that a production environment should *not* track either STABLE or CURRENT. So I'm assuming I'm best off with RELENG_6_0 etc, etc? Does anyone here actually run STABLE or CURRENT in a production environment? I've personally had the most luck with RELENG_4 which is still my main box, but now my curiosity has got the best of me. I generally track -RELEASE but my production boxes are currently at 5.4-STABLE from a while ago since there was an issue I was trying to fix and was hoping someone had put a patch in to fix whatever my issue was :-) My issue has not shown up since and my boxes have been working fine. But in general I play it conservative and track -RELEASE Thanks Chad, Do you 'sup and build in a devel lab first, or do you perform your upgrades in real-time, and if something fails go from there? I've found it to be ok when something fails (only lived with FBSD since 4.5), as usually it fails during build (which doesn't cause downtime), and after the reboot after installkernel (which can be reverted by using your backup of your previous kernel, or if you don't make a direct backup, essentially kernel.old) that you can get back up and running very quickly. Steve ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Release engineering confusion
On Nov 16, 2005, at 5:45 PM, Steve Bertrand wrote: In production (at an ISP), what is the best to follow...RELENGX_X or RELENG_X? I have 4.x, 5.x boxes in production, and this 6.x box is being prepared for the same. See the Handbook: 20.2.2.2 Who Needs FreeBSD-STABLE? Thank you. However, that entire page out of the handbook pretty much clarifies that a production environment should *not* track either STABLE or CURRENT. So I'm assuming I'm best off with RELENG_6_0 etc, etc? Does anyone here actually run STABLE or CURRENT in a production environment? I've personally had the most luck with RELENG_4 which is still my main box, but now my curiosity has got the best of me. I generally track -RELEASE but my production boxes are currently at 5.4-STABLE from a while ago since there was an issue I was trying to fix and was hoping someone had put a patch in to fix whatever my issue was :-) My issue has not shown up since and my boxes have been working fine. But in general I play it conservative and track -RELEASE Thanks Chad, Do you 'sup and build in a devel lab first, or do you perform your upgrades in real-time, and if something fails go from there? Major version changes I try and do in a lab first and make sure all is good. -RELEASE patch levels I do live and have never had an issue. The current switch to -STABLE was also live since I was in a bind trying to figure out why I was getting a hanging machine... Chad I've found it to be ok when something fails (only lived with FBSD since 4.5), as usually it fails during build (which doesn't cause downtime), and after the reboot after installkernel (which can be reverted by using your backup of your previous kernel, or if you don't make a direct backup, essentially kernel.old) that you can get back up and running very quickly. Steve --- Chad Leigh -- Shire.Net LLC Your Web App and Email hosting provider [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Release engineering confusion
On 11/16/05, Steve Bertrand [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Thank you. However, that entire page out of the handbook pretty much clarifies that a production environment should *not* track either STABLE or CURRENT. So I'm assuming I'm best off with RELENG_6_0 etc, etc? Does anyone here actually run STABLE or CURRENT in a production environment? I've personally had the most luck with RELENG_4 which is still my main box, but now my curiosity has got the best of me. Steve Ultimately it depends on how much downtime and difficulty you're willing to endure, just in case the -STABLE branch ends up not working for your servers for some particular reason. We use -RELEASE almost exclusively (we have one -STABLE machine, because we needed a newer version of a kernel driver) as we manage hundreds of servers, and there's no one -STABLE release (to properly describe the -STABLE version you're using you have to have the date and time of the cvsup, as opposed to -RELEASE versions being like 5.4-RELEASE-p9). It's easier, and thus more reliable, for us to have stable(heh) version strings. If you're just working with a handful of servers, -STABLE would probably be fine, as long as you have backups and know how to revert to previous versions when it becomes necessary. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: Release engineering confusion
-Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of David Kirchner Sent: Wednesday, November 16, 2005 7:45 PM To: Steve Bertrand Cc: RW; FreeBSD Questions Subject: Re: Release engineering confusion On 11/16/05, Steve Bertrand [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Thank you. However, that entire page out of the handbook pretty much clarifies that a production environment should *not* track either STABLE or CURRENT. So I'm assuming I'm best off with RELENG_6_0 etc, etc? Does anyone here actually run STABLE or CURRENT in a production environment? I've personally had the most luck with RELENG_4 which is still my main box, but now my curiosity has got the best of me. Steve Ultimately it depends on how much downtime and difficulty you're willing to endure, just in case the -STABLE branch ends up not working for your servers for some particular reason. We use -RELEASE almost exclusively (we have one -STABLE machine, because we needed a newer version of a kernel driver) as we manage hundreds of servers, and there's no one -STABLE release (to properly describe the -STABLE version you're using you have to have the date and time of the cvsup, as opposed to -RELEASE versions being like 5.4-RELEASE-p9). It's easier, and thus more reliable, for us to have stable(heh) version strings. I can appreciate the fact it's easier to follow one string for so many servers. If you're just working with a handful of servers, -STABLE would probably be fine, as long as you have backups and know how to revert to previous versions when it becomes necessary. I do only have a handful of servers, however thousands of users, and indeed, I do have backups. The problem arises in a criticality that 20 minutes of downtime would lead to a severe problemwhich brings up another good question...how do YOU revert back to a previous release? If you manage so many servers, I'd love to know what type of routine you'd use to revert back (and so would many others I'd think ;) Usually, as per my last message Re: Chad, the upgrades usually fail during one or two places: buildworld, or rebooting after installkernel. Both of those are easy to recover from. *knock on wood*, I've never had a showstopper after installworld before. I wouldn't know what to do if that happened. If installkernel reboots, then I've always been good after that. Steve ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: Release engineering confusion
In production (at an ISP), what is the best to follow...RELENGX_X or RELENG_X? I have 4.x, 5.x boxes in production, and this 6.x box is being prepared for the same. See the Handbook: 20.2.2.2 Who Needs FreeBSD-STABLE? Thank you. However, that entire page out of the handbook pretty much clarifies that a production environment should *not* track either STABLE or CURRENT. So I'm assuming I'm best off with RELENG_6_0 etc, etc? Does anyone here actually run STABLE or CURRENT in a production environment? I've personally had the most luck with RELENG_4 which is still my main box, but now my curiosity has got the best of me. I generally track -RELEASE but my production boxes are currently at 5.4-STABLE from a while ago since there was an issue I was trying to fix and was hoping someone had put a patch in to fix whatever my issue was :-) My issue has not shown up since and my boxes have been working fine. But in general I play it conservative and track -RELEASE Thanks Chad, Do you 'sup and build in a devel lab first, or do you perform your upgrades in real-time, and if something fails go from there? Major version changes I try and do in a lab first and make sure all is good. -RELEASE patch levels I do live and have never had an issue. The current switch to -STABLE was also live since I was in a bind trying to figure out why I was getting a hanging machine... Thanks again. So, essentially, it's ok for me to track a release...any release and feel confident that I am secure (at least up to date as I can be) without introducing new *feature* bugs into a live environment? Realistically, that's exactly what answer I've been looking for. My systems perform very particular tasks. I don't need anything new, I just want to ensure I've got all the sec/bug patches that our fine fellows have produced, and we know are stable (not as in FBSD-STABLE). I don't have the time, nor staff resources to test every single update in a lab before we deploy, hence the reason for this whole entire thread. Steve ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Release engineering confusion
On 11/16/05, Steve Bertrand [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of David Kirchner D'oh. I had no idea my From header looked like that. Another gmail frustration. I do only have a handful of servers, however thousands of users, and indeed, I do have backups. The problem arises in a criticality that 20 minutes of downtime would lead to a severe problemwhich brings up another good question...how do YOU revert back to a previous release? If you manage so many servers, I'd love to know what type of routine you'd use to revert back (and so would many others I'd think ;) Depending on how serious the problem is we may restore the changed files from backups or cvsup to the date just before when the -RELEASE-pNN tag was set. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
