[1227] in netbsd-help mailing list archive
ALPHA TESTERS: Autoupdate release
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Nathan J. Williams)
Fri Apr 10 16:11:21 1998
To: netbsd-dev@MIT.EDU, netbsd-help@MIT.EDU
Cc: rhs@MIT.EDU, deberg@MIT.EDU, kcr@MIT.EDU, yoav@MIT.EDU, gamache@MIT.EDU,
yak@MIT.EDU, quark@MIT.EDU, collins@MIT.EDU, ghudson@MIT.EDU
From: "Nathan J. Williams" <nathanw@MIT.EDU>
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1998 16:10:49 EDT
This message is for those kind and adventurous souls who have
installed the NetBSD-Athena 8.0 prerelease. The latest rebuild of the
system packs includes support for automatic updates to the latest
version of the NetBSD-Athena system.
This update (from 8.0.0 to 8.0.1) includes an update from
NetBSD-1.3 to NetBSD-1.3.1, as well as changes in the Athena
software. The updated version of NetBSD fixes a number of important
bugs, but the update process has not yet been widely tested. You, the
brave alpha testers, will now be testing the update system. :)
If the AUTOUPDATE variable in /etc/athena/rc.conf is set to
true (the default) your system will update at a random time chosen
from a four-hour interval starting when reactivate next runs (when
nobody is logged in) after we release the new system packs this
afternoon. If you want to avoid the automatic update and take the
update manually, set the AUTOUPDATE to false in /etc/athena/rc.conf.
You can then invoke the update manually by running "/srvd/update-ws".
The update process will install a new kernel, reboot, install
the new OS and Athena software, reboot, finish the update, and reboot
a final time into the new version. For this to work properly, your
system will need to boot automatically into NetBSD; if you have OS-BS
or another multi-boot selector installed, make sure that it boots into
NetBSD by default.
If all goes well, no manual intervention will be required. If
the new kernel does not work on your system (unlikely, since the 1.3.1
kernel is so similar to the 1.3 kernel), you will need to manually
recover by booting the "netbsd-preupdate" kernel. To do this, press
space during the bootloader's five-second delay and type "boot
netbsd-preupdate" (note: this is not a single-user boot). The update
system should detect that you have booted the old kernel and will back
out of the update.
After the update is complete, a log of the process will be in
/var/athena/update.log. You should read it for information about what
happened, and for possible indications of subtle failures.
As always, if you have any questions or problems, send mail to
netbsd-help@mit.edu with as full a description of the problem as
possible.
Again, thanks for being alpha testers!
- Nathan
