From nobody@FreeBSD.org  Mon Oct 24 13:22:04 2005
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Date: Mon, 24 Oct 2005 13:22:03 GMT
From: "Simson L. Garfinkel" <simsong@acm.org>
To: freebsd-gnats-submit@FreeBSD.org
Subject: mergemaster needs to be smarter about config files
X-Send-Pr-Version: www-2.3

>Number:         87921
>Category:       bin
>Synopsis:       mergemaster(8) needs to be smarter about config files
>Confidential:   no
>Severity:       non-critical
>Priority:       medium
>Responsible:    dougb
>State:          closed
>Quarter:        
>Keywords:       
>Date-Required:  
>Class:          sw-bug
>Submitter-Id:   current-users
>Arrival-Date:   Mon Oct 24 13:30:16 GMT 2005
>Closed-Date:    Mon Oct 24 22:11:14 GMT 2005
>Last-Modified:  Mon Oct 24 22:11:14 GMT 2005
>Originator:     Simson L. Garfinkel
>Release:        6.0-RC1
>Organization:
Harvard University
>Environment:
FreeBSD h.ex.com 6.0-RC1 FreeBSD 6.0-RC1 #0: Thu Oct 20 09:53:07 EDT 2005     simsong@h.ex.com:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/GENERIC  i386
        
>Description:
Upgrading a FreeBSD machine takes longer than it should because of the large number of mindless mergmaster questions that are asked.

In many cases, the questions that are asked do not need to be asked, because the file from the prevous release has not been modified in any way.

For example, last night I upgraded a machine from 5.4 to 6.0-RC1 and was asked if I would like to merge in my changes to the file  /etc/defaults/pccard.conf.

However, I had not made any changes to this file. The file had changed between releases, but the version that I had installed was unchanged from my original distribution.


>How-To-Repeat:
              Upgrade a machine from 5.4 to 6.0-RC1.
>Fix:
              An easy solution to this problem would be for mergemaster to consult the mtree system and simply upgrade any file whose contents had not been modified. If you feel the need to special case certain files, such as /etc/passwd, you could do that. But files like  /etc/defaults/pccard.conf should be silently upgraded if they are not modified between upgrades. 

>Release-Note:
>Audit-Trail:
Responsible-Changed-From-To: freebsd-bugs->dougb 
Responsible-Changed-By: linimon 
Responsible-Changed-When: Mon Oct 24 17:34:57 GMT 2005 
Responsible-Changed-Why:  
Reclassify and assign. 

http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=87921 
State-Changed-From-To: open->closed 
State-Changed-By: dougb 
State-Changed-When: Mon Oct 24 22:09:15 GMT 2005 
State-Changed-Why:  

Thanks for this PR, however what you're asking for is 
actually contrary to the design goals for this utility. 
It should also be noted that upgrading from one major 
version to another is fraught with a great deal of trials, 
and the recommended process is to back up your data, then 
do a clean install. 

You might also want to take a look at etcmerge in ports. 

Good luck, 

Doug 


http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=87921 
>Unformatted:
