Re: reboot during upgrade

On Sat, 30 Aug 2008, Chuck Swiger wrote:
> On Aug 29, 2008, at 3:15 PM, Matkhamtkha Brekher wrote:
> > #  1.  `cd /usr/src'       (or to the directory containing your
> > source tree).
> > #  2.  `make buildworld'
> > #  3.  `make buildkernel KERNCONF=YOUR_KERNEL_HERE'     (default is
> > GENERIC).
> > #  4.  `make installkernel KERNCONF=YOUR_KERNEL_HERE'   (default is
> > GENERIC).
> > #       [steps 3. & 4. can be combined by using the "kernel"
> > target] #  5.  `reboot'        (in single user mode: boot -s from
> > the loader prompt).
> > #  6.  `mergemaster -p'
> > #  7.  `make installworld'
> > #  8.  `make delete-old'
> > #  9.  `mergemaster'
> > # 10.  `reboot'
> > # 11.  `make delete-old-libs' (in case no 3rd party program uses
> > them anymore)
> >
> > what consequences would appear if i'll reboot the machine once
> > during the upgrade?
>
> If you don't reboot in order to be using the new kernel before
> installing the new userland, you'll install critical things like sh
> and make which might not run using the old kernel.  You might find
> that the installworld part fails in the middle, and the system is
> left in an unusable state which is very hard to recover from.

You could do it once and avoid step 10.

Once you have mergemaster'd and deleted the old libs (if you are going 
to) you can press ctrl-d to exit the single user shell and the system 
will boot as normal.

Avoiding the reboot at 4 is risky but the risk is low if you're not 
upgrading a major release number (eg 6 -> 7)

-- 
Daniel O'Connor software and network engineer
for Genesis Software - http://www.gsoft.com.au
"The nice thing about standards is that there
are so many of them to choose from."
  -- Andrew Tanenbaum
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