On Fri, 19 Jul 2002, B. James Phillippe spamblock wrote:

> I have the 1.5 branch of NetBSD checked out in /usr/src/1.5, and would like
> to build and install it over my existing system.  The system is currently a
> 1.5.2 install, and is used as a production server and development system.
>
> What is the correct method for me to rebuild all sources and install
> them w/out munging my config/etc stuff?  I have been building and
> installing my own kernels with no problems, and have built and installed
> individual applications both from the NetBSD source and pkgsrc; what I
> haven't done is "build the whole enchilada".

"make build" to the root (the default) doesn't touch "/etc". NetBSD
1.6 has (or will have) "etcupdate", but for netbsd-1-5, you're on your
own with "/etc" and "/var".

You might also set "DESTDIR" and "RELEASEDIR" and do a "make release",
building a whole binary release (same as you could download).
"sysinstall" in the INSTALL kernel's ramdisk image, besides unpacking
the sets, takes care of a few ancillary tasks like updating the
bootblocks, removing obsolete files, and building "/dev", but you're
still going to have to merge "/etc" yourself. (In this case, it copies
your "/etc" to "/etc.old" before unpacking "etc.tgz", then does some
rudimentary configuration of the new "/etc".) This might not even
work, though, without updating some installed tools first.

A half-way measure would be do a "make build" with "DESTDIR" set, and
then use "pax" or "diff" (as appropriate) to merge the contents of
${DESTDIR} with your root. "${DESTDIR}/etc" will be fully populated,
and can be used for comparison. This, too, might not work if some of
the tools are out of date.

Frederick