4.6 patch support
Hi, I've an OpenBSD 4.6-Stable system. I wanted to ask how long will OBSD4.6 has patch/update support? If there is a support time limit like lets say up to 12/24 months, does it mean after that time, it will not get any update, not even (possible) critical vulnerabilities? Kind regards.
Re: 4.6 patch support
On Mon, Mar 22, 2010 at 01:36:45PM +0200, Andreas Gerdd wrote: Hi, I've an OpenBSD 4.6-Stable system. I wanted to ask how long will OBSD4.6 has patch/update support? If there is a support time limit like lets say up to 12/24 months, does it mean after that time, it will not get any update, not even (possible) critical vulnerabilities? Kind regards. when 4.8 comes out (a year after 4.6 came out) support for 4.6 will stop. Our advise is to upgrade to a newer version and plan for that now. It's not magic, in fact it is pretty easy in almost all cases. -Otto
Re: 4.6 patch support
On Mon, Mar 22, 2010 at 01:36:45PM +0200, Andreas Gerdd wrote: Hi, I've an OpenBSD 4.6-Stable system. I wanted to ask how long will OBSD4.6 has patch/update support? If there is a support time limit like lets say up to 12/24 months, does it mean after that time, it will not get any update, not even (possible) critical vulnerabilities? The standard is to support the current and previous releases; given that the OpenBSD development cycle is one release every 6 months, releases over approximately 1 year old are considered unsupported. mvh Kind regards.
Re: 4.6 patch support
On Mon, Mar 22, 2010 at 01:36:45PM +0200, Andreas Gerdd wrote: Hi, I've an OpenBSD 4.6-Stable system. I wanted to ask how long will OBSD4.6 has patch/update support? If there is a support time limit like lets say up to 12/24 months, does it mean after that time, it will not get any update, not even (possible) critical vulnerabilities? http://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq5.html#Flavors
Re: 4.6 patch support
when 4.8 comes out (a year after 4.6 came out) support for 4.6 will stop. Quite short time. Our advise is to upgrade to a newer version and plan for that now. It's not magic, in fact it is pretty easy in almost all cases. It is not magic, but it is more than magic if you have only remote ssh access and nothing else. :-( Regards.
Re: 4.6 patch support
On Mon, Mar 22, 2010 at 7:36 AM, Andreas Gerdd kryptos...@gmail.com wrote: Hi, I've an OpenBSD 4.6-Stable system. I wanted to ask how long will OBSD4.6 has patch/update support? If there is a support time limit like lets say up to 12/24 months, does it mean after that time, it will not get any update, not even (possible) critical vulnerabilities? Kind regards. Support means something special for OpenBSD. It means two things: fixing security bugs and answering questions about how a feature of a release works or can be invoked. That ends at 12 mos. There is no back-porting of features, and that end of support starts at the moment of release. In the new features (say a driver for new hardware) sense there is no support for any release after it's released. Ports/packages are sort of hit-or-miss. This is a very Spartan situation, and comes from a shortage of resources. In a sense, one achieves the level of support offered elsewhere by recognizing that the method of obtaining it is to always update versions. With OpenBSD, as others point out, this is very easy and usually very-very well debugged prior to the next release. Most OpenBSD releases would be termed incremental updates by other OSes. Nine times out of ten, an upgrade can be completed in ten minutes, and mass upgrading of a farm not much longer for the whole farm. One advantage of the Open system is that one knows where one stands, and there is no in-system forking of releases, a problem which makes certain other *n*x systems or distros a crazy mess. Open is like a single-track railroad, there are breathing points called stations, where one gets on or off, and after a year the old track is ripped up and recycled. The fare is $100/year but hoboes are still welcome. Dave -- teh googlez read my emails 'n' STUFF LOLZ!!! urz 2!!! LOLZ!!!
Re: 4.6 patch support
On Mon, Mar 22, 2010 at 7:14 PM, Andreas Gerdd kryptos...@gmail.com wrote: when 4.8 comes out (a year after 4.6 came out) support for 4.6 will stop. Quite short time. Our advise is to upgrade to a newer version and plan for that now. It's not magic, in fact it is pretty easy in almost all cases. It is not magic, but it is more than magic if you have only remote ssh access and nothing else. :-( not really -- O ascii ribbon campaign - stop html mail - www.asciiribbon.org
Re: 4.6 patch support
On Mon, Mar 22, 2010 at 02:14:23PM +0200, Andreas Gerdd wrote: when 4.8 comes out (a year after 4.6 came out) support for 4.6 will stop. Quite short time. Our advise is to upgrade to a newer version and plan for that now. It's not magic, in fact it is pretty easy in almost all cases. It is not magic, but it is more than magic if you have only remote ssh access and nothing else. :-( Regards. Our upgrade guide gives a (tested!) procedure to do remote upgrades. There's more risk involved compared to an upgrade at the console. But that's a consequence of you deciding to run a remote machine without console access. If it matters: I often upgrade machines with only ssh acccess, and never had to drive to the colo to fix things. -Otto
Re: 4.6 patch support
From: Andreas Gerdd kryptos...@gmail.com when 4.8 comes out (a year after 4.6 came out) support for 4.6 will stop. Quite short time. Perhaps, but it /is/ free. There are undoubtedly some people who will backport fixes to earlier versions if you paid them. Our advise is to upgrade to a newer version and plan for that now. It's not magic, in fact it is pretty easy in almost all cases. It is not magic, but it is more than magic if you have only remote ssh access and nothing else. :-( You have multiple options, there's : http://www.openbsd.org/faq/upgrade46.html Which perhaps looks a little scary, but does work. Alternatively try YAIFO http://sourceforge.net/projects/yaifo/ for an ssh enabled install kernel. Of course, you should test both these options on a local machine before attempting it remotely.. PK
Re: 4.6 patch support
On Mon, Mar 22, 2010 at 08:11:53AM -0400, Woodchuck wrote: Ports/packages are sort of hit-or-miss. This is a very Spartan situation, and comes from a shortage of resources. Partly. Being able to drop old shit fairly quickly is also very important in terms of quality, since we don't have to read through a maze of old code ifdefs. If you prefer, sure it's a shortage of resources. We want to maximize quality with limited resources, and so we err on the side of aggressive removal of dying features. It would take a *massive* influx of resources to change that situation. Even with more resources, we will still prefer quality over long-term support. With lots and lots of resources, we could possibly reengineer long-term support without sacrificing quality. Think about it. What do you prefer ? half-baked support and badly broken features, or good support over a limited period of time, and the best features we can create ?
Re: 4.6 patch support
On Mon, 22 Mar 2010 14:45 +0100, Marc Espie es...@nerim.net wrote: On Mon, Mar 22, 2010 at 08:11:53AM -0400, Woodchuck wrote: Ports/packages are sort of hit-or-miss. This is a very Spartan situation, and comes from a shortage of resources. Partly. Being able to drop old shit fairly quickly is also very important in terms of quality, since we don't have to read through a maze of old code ifdefs. If you prefer, sure it's a shortage of resources. We want to maximize quality with limited resources, and so we err on the side of aggressive removal of dying features. It would take a *massive* influx of resources to change that situation. This is a great point in general about OpenBSD. Look at the commits of the Linux kernel or FreeBSD versus the commits of OpenBSD... the difference is huge. Not only in terms of number of commits, but also number of developers making the commits. OpenBSD does a lot with what little they have when compared to other projects... just my opinion. Brad Even with more resources, we will still prefer quality over long-term support. With lots and lots of resources, we could possibly reengineer long-term support without sacrificing quality. Think about it. What do you prefer ? half-baked support and badly broken features, or good support over a limited period of time, and the best features we can create ?
Re: 4.6 patch support
Andreas Gerdd wrote: when 4.8 comes out (a year after 4.6 came out) support for 4.6 will stop. Quite short time. Not really. Our advise is to upgrade to a newer version and plan for that now. It's not magic, in fact it is pretty easy in almost all cases. It is not magic, but it is more than magic if you have only remote ssh access and nothing else. :-( Regards. What about upgrade46.html do you find difficult (or magic)? I've been writing the upgradeXX.html documents for quite some time, and NEVER heard such a claim before. Could the upgrade process be improved? Probably, but an awful lot of people do remote upgrades quite regularly. As I write the documentation for that, other than release testing, ALL my upgrades are remote, even if the machine is a few feet away. Please explain yourself... and yes, I expect a public answer from you on this. Nick.
Re: 4.6 patch support
On Mon, Mar 22, 2010 at 01:36:45PM +0200, Andreas Gerdd wrote: I've an OpenBSD 4.6-Stable system. I wanted to ask how long will OBSD4.6 has patch/update support? If you already follow -stable, it is the same process to upgrade to newer release. The main differences are that you get newer versions of packages and when you run sysmerge it asks a few more questions. There may be a few other small things, but they should all be mentioned in the upgrade guide. It confuses me when people want support for older versions. Somehow they can follow -stable but upgrading to a new release is too hard? Perhaps they assume that as long as the fixes are committed to the -stable cvs tag, the -release code on their machine somehow magically has it because the version numbers are the same. l8rZ, -- andrew - ICQ# 253198 - Jabber: and...@rraz.net - Twitter: @AFreshOne BOFH excuse of the day: secretary plugged hairdryer into UPS
