[wplug-bsd] overzealous upgrade all the way to CURRENT?

[Bill Moran]

Duncan Hutty <dhutty+wplug-bsd at ece.cmu.edu> wrote:
> Further tales of Duncan's dabblings with the Beastie-5.3:
> 
> I thought compiling a new kernel might fall under the category of 
> 'everybody should do this'. So I copied and modified GENERIC taking out 
> some things that even I could tell weren't necessary.
> 
> I had read somewhere that sparc64 rejected older teachings and followed 
> the new way of the kernel, per the HB's instructions:
> cd /usr/src && make buildkernel KERNCONF=<MINE>
> 
> Returning some significant time later I discovered to my disappoinment 
> that it failed to build me a new kernel.
> 
> So I poked around various lists in some of the dimmer corners of the 
> web, where I heard tell of make buildworld as a required precursor to 
> make buildkernel. Naively, I believed these rumours. Again, the wait, 
> but being somewhat of a gentooista, I'm used to that and find other 
> things to do.
> 
> When I return, uname -a does not return a nice happy FreeBSD-5.3-STABLE 
> <MINE> string, but instead includes the scary FreeBSD-6.0-CURRENT. And 
> thinking to myself that there be dragons there, I remember being warned 
> off CURRENT in just about every document I've ever seen about FreeBSD.
> 
> Thus I beseech you with these humble questions:
> Have I indeed upgraded my system to 6.0-CURRENT? Or is uname confusing me?

Sounds like you've got 6.0 at this point.

> What should I have verified beforehand to ensure that this didn't happen 
> in the first place?

This will be controlled by your supfile.  It should say one of these:
*default release=cvs tag=RELENG_5 # For 5-STABLE
*default release=cvs tag=RELENG_5_3 # for the 5.3 patch branch
Right now, it probably says:
*default release=cvs tag=. # Gets you the bloodiest part of the edge

> What led it to such a dramatic change anyway? Was it the contents of my 
> supfile? I wasn't too confident about the difference between the tag and 
> release parameters.

That would be my first guess.  Can you post the supfile you used?

> Given that this is to be a stable, barely touched once it has been set 
> up kind of box, is it possible to downgrade?

At this point, probably.  6 hasn't had a lot of time to diverge from 5
yet, so re-cvsupping with the proper parameters (=RELENG_5, or similar)
and rebuilding world/kernel is likely to work OK.

The basic steps for rebuilding/reinstalling are:
1) make buildworld
2) make buildkernel
3) make installkernel
4) Reboot, ensure new kernel boots (I recommend you skip this step when you
   downgrade)
5) make installworld
6) Reboot
7) mergemaster (I'm not sure how well this will work on a downgrade)

I did this once (long ago) when I accidentally upgraded a 4.2 system to
5-CURRENT, and was able to save the day successfully.

-- 
Bill Moran
Potential Technologies
http://www.potentialtech.com