Re: Upgrading NetBSD in-place in a clean way

[uwe%stderr.spb.ru@localhost (Valeriy E. Ushakov)]

Matthias Scheler <tron%zhadum.org.uk@localhost> wrote:

> On Wed, Jan 12, 2011 at 11:38:24PM +0100, Stefano Marinelli wrote:
>> > Using "/usr/sbin/posinstall -s etc.tgz -d / check" will show you what
>> > needs to be removed or updated and print out the command to do that.
>> 
>> Very good, thank you.
>> Am I wrong or etcupdate also launches postinstall, after operating
>> on config files?

etcupdate launches "postinstall check", which tells you if you need to
run "postinstall fix" (e.g. to remove obsolete files).

> I've never use "etcupdate". I only use "postinstall" and managed to
> remotely update a lot systems using this approach, some of them even
> multiple times (e.g. 1.6 -> 2.0 -> 2.1 -> 3.0 -> 4.0 -> 5.0 -> 5.1).

postinstall is intended to do minimal necessary changes to the old
/etc to make it work with the new userland.  etcupdate does the real,
complete installation/merge of the new etc.tgz.

-uwe