Re: Philosophy of default pkg_add -r PACKAGESITE?
First off, thanks to Kris and Mel for the previous definitive answers. Let me see if I can summarize this correctly... 1) It's important that administrators who are taking advantage of pre-compiled packages (like me) use packages that have been compiled for their particular base system. 2) For users running a release base system, there is set of pre-compiled packages provided for use with their particular release. These are the packages found on the FTP site in the release folders on the FTP site. 3) The default behavior for pkg_add -r on RELEASE systems is to source it's pre-compiled packages from the release directory matching the underlying base-system's release. For a 6.2-RELEASE base system (for i386), pkg_add -r will source packages from... /pub/FreeBSD/ports/i386/packages-6.2-release 4) Those release packages are never updated for any reason. The list of available packages neither increases nor decreases, the versions of the packages made available doesn't change, and (presumably) the packages are never recompiled once the release has occurred. It's a static list of packages compiled (and tested) for a particular release and then never touched again. 5) If an admin wants to install pre-compiled packages that are not present in the default release directory, they can configure pkg_add -r to source packages from one of the other package directories by setting the PACKAGESITE environment variable to point to one of the other package directories. 6) Care should be taken when re-pointing PACKAGESITE as it would then be possible for you to install a package that's been compiled against a different version of some base-system library than you are currently running. How'd I do? Assuming I did well, a couple of more questions... 1) Regardless of what base-system version you install, eventually the base system will need to be updated (in the least, to apply security updates). So generally one important decision is what version of FreeBSD you're going to track when doing updates. Security? Stable? Current? So what's the recommended application install-procedure if you start with a release system and then track security via freebsd-update? (A common scenario, I presume.) It would seem that pkg-add -r is a no-go in this case. If you leave pkg_add -r pointing to it's default source, it'll grab packages compiled against the release system which, while unlikely, may have libraries incompatible with your new base system that's tracking security. If you change pkg-add -r to source from stable or release you're getting packages compiled against a base-system even more different than your own security base system. As far as I can tell there is not set of pre-compiled packages that have been compiled against the secure track. 2) How does pkg_add -r know it's on a release system? The handbook says that pkg_add -r will download from either the current, stable, or release package directories as appropriate. How does it know I have a release system and not a stable system? Particularly since my system is not *really* a release system once I do my first freebsd-update, right?. At that point it becomes a system tracking secure, right? Thanks again for the input so far. The package thing is making way more sense, hopefully a few more clarifications and I'll grok it. Thanks, - Gary ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Philosophy of default pkg_add -r PACKAGESITE?
Gary Affonso wrote: If I do, it seems to me that the absolute first thing I should do after installing a release version would be to change where pkg_add -r is sourcing packages from. Either to current if I like to live on the edge or stable if I want to be a more conservative. No, stable and current here refer to the branches of FreeBSD that the packages are compiled to run with, there are no other differences in the contents of the packages themselves. I'm curious, why does pkg_add -r point to the release snapshot of ports by default? Is the idea that a release is well-tested and that any deviation from that (even security or bug-fix changes) is an unknown that new users need to be shielded against when grabbing packages with pkg_add -r? Seems to me it would be better to have pkg_add -r point to stable (which, if I understand things correctly, does get updated packages). -release packages have gone through an extensive period of testing with that release, so you have more confidence they will work. The up-to-date packages may not work, may not even be present on the FTP site, and in general are not suitable for users who just want a working system without having to fiddle with it. i.e. defaulting to the packages that came with the release is a conservative step that is appropriate for users who just want packages that work, and don't care about always having the latest versions. For the rest of you, you're going to be doing a lot more hands on admin anyway, so setting one env variable is not a heavy burden. And how does one go about *permanently* changing the pkg_add -r target. You can set the PACKAGESITE variable in the shell which will work on a user-by-user basis but isn't there a way to centrally change PACKAGESITE without relying on each user to have properly config'd their individual shells? In the typical configuration only root can add packages, so just add it there. Kris ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Philosophy of default pkg_add -r PACKAGESITE?
I'm curious, why does pkg_add -r point to the release snapshot of ports by default? Is the idea that a release is well-tested and that any deviation from that (even security or bug-fix changes) is an unknown that new users need to be shielded against when grabbing packages with pkg_add -r? Seems to me it would be better to have pkg_add -r point to stable (which, if I understand things correctly, does get updated packages). -release packages have gone through an extensive period of testing with that release, so you have more confidence they will work. The up-to-date packages may not work, may not even be present on the FTP site, and in general are not suitable for users who just want a working system without having to fiddle with it. i.e. defaulting to the packages that came with the release is a conservative step that is appropriate for users who just want packages that work, and don't care about always having the latest versions. For the rest of you, you're going to be doing a lot more hands on admin anyway, so setting one env variable is not a heavy burden. Do the -release packages get updates for security (and only for security) reasons? I ask because I don't find any information about this on the FBSD webpages. Thanks. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Philosophy of default pkg_add -r PACKAGESITE?
Gueven Bay wrote: I'm curious, why does pkg_add -r point to the release snapshot of ports by default? Is the idea that a release is well-tested and that any deviation from that (even security or bug-fix changes) is an unknown that new users need to be shielded against when grabbing packages with pkg_add -r? Seems to me it would be better to have pkg_add -r point to stable (which, if I understand things correctly, does get updated packages). -release packages have gone through an extensive period of testing with that release, so you have more confidence they will work. The up-to-date packages may not work, may not even be present on the FTP site, and in general are not suitable for users who just want a working system without having to fiddle with it. i.e. defaulting to the packages that came with the release is a conservative step that is appropriate for users who just want packages that work, and don't care about always having the latest versions. For the rest of you, you're going to be doing a lot more hands on admin anyway, so setting one env variable is not a heavy burden. Do the -release packages get updates for security (and only for security) reasons? I ask because I don't find any information about this on the FBSD webpages. No, we don't have the resources. Kris ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Philosophy of default pkg_add -r PACKAGESITE?
In the last episode (Sep 04), Kris Kennaway said: Gary Affonso wrote: I'm curious, why does pkg_add -r point to the release snapshot of ports by default? Is the idea that a release is well-tested and that any deviation from that (even security or bug-fix changes) is an unknown that new users need to be shielded against when grabbing packages with pkg_add -r? Seems to me it would be better to have pkg_add -r point to stable (which, if I understand things correctly, does get updated packages). -release packages have gone through an extensive period of testing with that release, so you have more confidence they will work. The up-to-date packages may not work, may not even be present on the FTP site, and in general are not suitable for users who just want a working system without having to fiddle with it. i.e. defaulting to the packages that came with the release is a conservative step that is appropriate for users who just want packages that work, and don't care about always having the latest versions. For the rest of you, you're going to be doing a lot more hands on admin anyway, so setting one env variable is not a heavy burden. Also, packages from the -stable directory may have different/conflicting dependencies compared to existing packages on your system. Imagine installing 6.2 before the x.org-7 update, then trying to pkg_add -r a package from the -stable directory that depends on an xorg-7 feature. pkg_add just isn't smart enough to realize that you really need to upgrade all of X, and will probably fail the install at some point. Ideally one would install 6.2 from a CD, select the packages they initially want, then pull an updated /usr/ports tree and update their system from that using their favorite tools from the ports/port-mgmt directory. -- Dan Nelson [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: Philosophy of default pkg_add -r PACKAGESITE?
On Tuesday 04 September 2007 16:40:27 Dan Nelson wrote: Also, packages from the -stable directory may have different/conflicting dependencies compared to existing packages on your system. Imagine installing 6.2 before the x.org-7 update, then trying to pkg_add -r a package from the -stable directory that depends on an xorg-7 feature. pkg_add just isn't smart enough to realize that you really need to upgrade all of X, and will probably fail the install at some point. The same applies to a 6.2-STABLE before x.org-7 update, no difference there. It's not about port dependencies, it's about base-system dependencies. It doesn't happen often that within a minor release update a library gets a version bump, but binary incompatibilities may still occur. For -RELEASE you are expected to upgrade from source. Typical behavior being that ports only get upgraded when portaudit reports them unsafe. -- Mel People using reply to all on lists, must think I need 2 copies. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Philosophy of default pkg_add -r PACKAGESITE?
Here's one thing I've never quite understood about FreeBSD and I was hoping somebody could provide some enlightenment... I've got 6.2-release installed. By default (as you all probably know) pkg_add -r fetches packages from the release directory: ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/i386/packages-6.2-release Now here's where it gets weird for me. If I understand the FreeBSD release methodology , that release is a frozen-in-time snapshot of a particular release (6.2 in my case) that gets no future updates. As we move farther and farther beyond a particular releases debut-date, that snapshot (and the packages it contains) gets increasingly stale. Do I have that right? If I do, it seems to me that the absolute first thing I should do after installing a release version would be to change where pkg_add -r is sourcing packages from. Either to current if I like to live on the edge or stable if I want to be a more conservative. I'm curious, why does pkg_add -r point to the release snapshot of ports by default? Is the idea that a release is well-tested and that any deviation from that (even security or bug-fix changes) is an unknown that new users need to be shielded against when grabbing packages with pkg_add -r? Seems to me it would be better to have pkg_add -r point to stable (which, if I understand things correctly, does get updated packages). And how does one go about *permanently* changing the pkg_add -r target. You can set the PACKAGESITE variable in the shell which will work on a user-by-user basis but isn't there a way to centrally change PACKAGESITE without relying on each user to have properly config'd their individual shells? I know a lot of thought has gone into the current system so I'm thinking that these questions are due to the fact that I'm just not grok'ing something important about the philosophy behind all this. Any help would be greatly appreciated. - Gary ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
