1 Updating Information for FreeBSD current users
3 This file is maintained by imp@village.org. Please send new entries
4 directly to him. See end of file for further details. For commonly
5 done items, please see the end of the file. Search for 'COMMON
9 The ports tree's new layout is in place. Be sure to update
10 your entire ports tree, or you will have problems.
13 The perl build proceedure no longer installs miniperl, nor uses
14 the installed miniperl. It is recommended that you delete
18 This weekend the ports tree will be updated to a new layout.
19 It will be in an inconsistant state until noted in the UPDATING
20 file, or with asami-san's message to the relevant mailing
21 lists. With this new layout, you'll need to update the whole
22 tree for anything to work.
25 /boot/kernel/kernel.ko -> /boot/kernel/kernel change has taken
26 place. Please update boot loader (not the boot blocks) at the
27 same time as your kernel.
30 The new pmtimer device is necessary for laptops. Failure to
31 include the device will cause suspended laptops losing time
32 when they resume. Include
34 in your config file and
35 hint.pmtimer.0.at="isa"
36 to your /boot/device.hints file.
39 The random device has been turned into a (pseudo-)device,
40 rather than an option. The supplied kernel config files have
41 been updated. You will need to do something similar in your
42 own kernel config file.
47 If you prefer to load the loadable module, you need to do
51 The random device module has been renamed from randomdev.ko to
52 random.ko. You will need to edit your /boot/loader.conf to
53 reflect this if you load this module at boot time.
58 The SMPNG commit has happened. It should work, but if it
59 doesn't, fallback to the PRE_SMPNG CVS tag. There are likely
60 to be a variety of minor issues. Please see 20000905 to make
61 sure you don't have model loading problems which might at
62 first blush appear related to SMP.
65 nsswitch has been imported from NetBSD. Among other things,
66 this means that /etc/host.conf is no longer used. See
67 nsswitch.conf(5) instead. Note that at boot time rc.network
68 will attempt to produce a new nsswitch.conf file for you if you
69 don't have one, and you have host.conf.
72 The ucred structure changed size. This breaks the interface
73 that mountd uses. Trying to use an older mountd with a newer
74 kernel guarantees a panic. This means that you need to use
75 kernels newer than today only with matching mountd, but you
76 needed to do that anyway with the boot loader changes.
79 The boot loader has been updated. The new default kernel is
80 now /boot/kernel/kernel.ko. The new default module location
83 You *MUST* upgrade your boot loader and kernel at the same time.
84 The easiest way to do this is to do the buildworld/buildkernel/
85 installkernel/installworld dance.
87 Furthermore, you are urged to delete your old /modules directory
88 before booting the new kernel, since kldload will find stale
89 modules in that directory instead of finding them in the correct
90 path, /boot/kernel. The most common complaint that this cures
91 is that the linux module crashes your machine after the update.
93 if [ ! -d /boot/kernel.old ]; then
94 mv /modules.old /boot/kernel.old
95 chflags noschg /kernel.old
96 mv /kernel.old /boot/kernel.old/kernel.ko
97 chflags schg /boot/kernel.old/kernel.ko
101 A new issue with the sendmail upgrade has come to light.
102 /etc/aliases has moved to /etc/mail/aliases. Mergemaster will
103 incorrectly install the default aliases in /etc/mail rather than
104 move the old one from /etc. So you'll need to manually move the
105 file, create a symbolic link, remove the old /etc/aliases.db and
106 run newaliases. For safety sake, you should stop sendmail
107 while doing this and run the upgrade when locally sourced email
108 is not likely to be generated.
111 /boot/device.hints is now required for installkernel to
112 succeed. You should copy GENERIC.hints for your architecture
113 into /boot/device.hints. If and only if you compile hints
114 into your kernel, then this file may be empty. Please note,
115 if you have an empty or missing /boot/device.hints file and
116 you neglected to compile hints into your kernel, no boot
117 messages will appear after the boot loader tries to start the
121 If you do NOT have ``options RANDOMDEV'' in your kernel and
122 you DO want the random device then add randomdev_load="YES" to
126 suidperl is now always built and installed on the system, but
127 with permissions of 511. If you have applications that use
128 this program, you are now required to add ENABLE_SUIDPERL=true
129 to /etc/make.conf. If you forget to do this,
130 chmod 4511 /usr/bin/suidperl
131 will fix this until the next build.
134 sendmail has been updated from 8.9.3 to 8.11.0. Some of the more
135 visible changes that may immediately affect your configuration
137 - New default file locations from src/contrib/sendmail/cf/README
138 - newaliases limited to root and trusted users
139 - MSA port (587) turned on by default
140 - New queue file naming system so can't go from 8.11 -> 8.9
141 - FEATURE(`rbl') renamed to FEATURE(`dnsbl')
142 - FEATURE(`nullclient') is more full featured
143 - FEATURE(`nouucp') requires an argument: `reject' or `nospecial'
144 - mail.local FreeBSD-only -b option changed to -B
145 - See src/contrib/sendmail/RELEASE_NOTES for more info
148 suidperl (aka sperl) is no longer build by default. You must
149 specifically define BUILD_SUIDPERL to "true" for it to be build.
150 Furthermore, we recommend that you remove /usr/bin/sperl* and
151 /usr/bin/suidperl files from your system unless you have a
155 Networking defaults have been tightened. Anybody upgrading
156 /etc/defaults/rc.conf needs to add the following lines to
157 /etc/rc.conf if they want to have the same setup
158 afterwards (unless the variables already are set, of course):
159 # Enable network daemons for user convenience.
162 sendmail_enable="YES"
165 If you have null_load="YES" in your /boot/loader.conf, you
166 will need to change that to nullfs_load="YES".
169 The "installkernel" target has changed slightly. Now even if
170 you override KERNEL e.g. 'make installkernel KERNEL=MYKERNEL'
171 it will install the MYKERNEL file (built with the buildkernel
172 target) as /kernel rather than /MYKERNEL. Those who have
173 updated their /boot/loader.conf files to point to /MYKERNEL
174 should remove that entry or perform manual rename of /kernel
178 If you use CVSUP or CTM to get CVS trees, AND you used to get
179 the old crypto files from internat.freebsd.org AND you check
180 out files from the CVS tree with the cvs command, please read
181 http://people.freebsd.org/~imp/internat.txt
182 for details on potential problems that you might have and how
185 If you are merely a mirror, or don't answer yes to each of the
186 clauses above, you needn't worry.
189 /etc/security has been updated to print the inode number of
190 setuid programs that have changed. You will see a large spike
191 in the number of changed programs the first time when you run
192 mergemaster to get a new /etc/security.
195 /dev/random now has good entropy collection (from the keyboard
196 and sysmouse drivers). Please ensure that either `options
197 RANDOMDEV' is present in your kernel config file or that
198 `randomdev_load="YES"' is in your /boot/loader.conf. If you do
199 not have the /dev/random driver, OpenSSL (and consequently
200 lots of crypto tools (like SSH)) will fail with strange
201 errors. (see below, 20000624).
203 FreeBSD-current is safe again to run Crypto.
206 phk made the malloc default options AJ. This may slow things
207 down and uncover other latent bugs in the code. If you need to
208 run at full speed, you can disable this by doing the following:
209 ln -s aj /etc/malloc.conf
212 libftpio's version was accidentally bumped a few days ago. This
213 has been corrected. You may need to remove /usr/lib/libftpio.so.6
214 before doing your next buildworld/installworld pair. It certainly
215 won't hurt to remove it before the update procedure. It will
216 break fetch until a new one is built, but ftp can be used in the
220 The crypto packages have changed for the cvsup. This has been done
221 in a backward compatible way, but the old packages will go away at
222 some point in the future. Look at /usr/share/examples/cvsup for
226 With the new sys/modules/sound/drivers/*, you will need to
227 set SYSDIR until you do an installworld after July 7th.
230 rc.shutdown and rc will now call the rc.d scripts with start
231 or stop. This may cause some harmless warnings from older
232 rc.d scripts that haven't been updated.
235 The libfetch based version of fetch has gone into the tree.
236 Minor problems may result on some of the less popular sites,
237 which should be reported to des@freebsd.org.
240 From approximately this date forward, one must have the crypto
241 system installed in order to build the system and kernel.
242 While not technically strictly true, one should treat it as
243 required and grab the crypto bits. If you are grabbing CVS
244 trees, src-all and cvs-crypto should be treated as if they
245 were required. You should check with the latest collections
246 to make sure that these haven't changed.
249 Mark Murray just committed the first parts of a cleanup of
250 /dev/zero, et al. This is also cleaning up /dev/random.
251 The entropy is disconnected, so DO NOT USE VERSIONS OF FREEBSD
252 -CURRENT FROM THIS POINT FORWARD for cryptographic services
253 until Mark can merge in the fixes to this work in progress.
254 openssh and openssl should not be used to generate keys from this
255 date to the completion of the work.
257 If you must operate at this reduced level of security, add '
258 options RANDOMDEV' to your kernel or modload the randomdev
259 module. You may also need to copy a new MAKEDEV to /dev and
260 recreate the random and urandom devices.
263 The license on the softupdates is now a standard 2 clause
264 BSD license. You may need to remove your symbolic links
265 that used to be required when updating.
268 Scott Flatman <sf@aracnet.com> sent in a decent write-up on
269 the config file update procedure.
270 http://people.freebsd.org/~imp/config-upd.html
271 NOTE: LINT is gone. It has been replaced with NOTES. NOTES
272 isn't buildable. However, you can generate a LINT file.
275 Binutils 2.10 have hit the tree, or will shortly. As soon
276 as they do, the problem noted in 20000522 will be resolved and
277 that workaround will no longer be required.
280 phk removed the compatibility creation of wd devices in the
281 ad driver. If you haven't done so already, you must update
282 your fstab, etc to use the ad devices instead of the wd
285 In addition, you'll need to update your boot blocks to a
286 more modern version, if you haven't already done so. Modern
287 here means 4.0 release or newer (although older releases
291 Peter took an axe to config(8). Be sure that you read his mail
292 on the topic before even thinking about updating. You will
293 need to create a /boot/device.hints or add a hints directive
294 to your config file to compile them in statically. The format
295 of the config file has changed as well. Please see GENERIC or
296 NEWCARD for examples of the new format.
299 A new set of binutils went into the tree today. Anybody
300 building a kernel after this point is advised that they need
301 to rebuild their binutils (or better yet do a
302 buildworld/installworld) before building a new kernel.
304 Due to bugs in binutils, using malloc options (eg /etc/malloc.conf
305 or MALLOC_OPTIONS env var) J will cause ld to dump core. It
306 is recommended that you don't set this option until the problem
310 The ethernet drivers were all updated to clean up the BPF handling.
313 The problems with boot blocks on the alphas have been corrected.
314 This will require some care in updating alphas. A new libstand
315 is requires for the boot blocks to build properly.
318 Recompile all kld modules. Proper version dependency info
322 Modules have been disconnected from the buildworld tree and
323 connected to the kernel building instead.
326 You may need to build gperf
327 cd /usr/src/gnu/usr.bin/gperf && make depend all install
328 when upgrading from 4.0 -> current. The build system now uses
329 an option only in -current.
332 The method that we brand ELF binaries has changed to be more
333 acceptable to the binutils maintainers. You will need to
334 rebrand your ELF binaries that aren't native. One problem
335 binary is the Linux ldconfig. After your make world, but
336 before you reboot, you'll need to issue:
337 brandelf -t Linux /compat/linux/sbin/ldconfig
338 if you have Linux compatibility enabled on your machine.
341 If you have really bad/marginal IDE drives, you may find they
342 don't work well. Use pio mode instead. The easiest way to
343 cope if you have a problem combination is to add:
344 /sbin/sysctl -w hw.atamodes=pio,pio,pio,pio
345 to the start of /etc/rc.conf.
348 The ISA and PCI compatibility shims have been connected to the
349 options COMPAT_OLDISA and COMPAT_OLDPCI. If you are using old
350 style PCI or ISA drivers (i.e. tx, voxware, etc.) you must
351 include the appropriate option in your kernel config. Drivers
352 using the shims should be updated or they won't ship with
353 5.0-RELEASE, targeted for 2001.
356 We've entered the traditional post release dumping party.
357 Large kernel changes are being committed and are in the
358 works. It is important to keep the systems' klds and kernel
359 in sync as kernel interfaces and structures are changing.
360 Before reporting kernel panics, make sure that all modules
361 that you are loading are up to date.
364 If you are upgrading from an older version of FreeBSD, you
365 need to update your boot blocks as well. 'disklabel -B ad0'
366 will do the trick. This isn't critical until you remove your
367 wd device entries in /dev, at which point your system will not
371 4.0 RELEASE shipped. Please see the 4.0 UPDATING file for how
372 to upgrade to 4.0 from 3.x.
378 Avoid using make -j when upgrading. From time to time in the
379 past there have been problems using -j with buildworld and/or
380 installworld. This is especially true when upgrading between
381 "distant" versions (eg one that cross a major release boundary
382 or several minor releases, or when several months have passed
383 on the -current branch).
387 If you are updating from a prior version of FreeBSD (even one just
388 a few days old), you should follow this procedure. With a
389 /usr/obj tree with a fresh buildworld,
390 make buildkernel KERNEL=YOUR_KERNEL_HERE
391 make installkernel KERNEL=YOUR_KERNEL_HERE
393 To just build a kernel when you know that it won't mess you up
394 --------------------------------------------------------------
395 cd src/sys/{i386,alpha}/conf
396 config KERNEL_NAME_HERE [1]
397 cd ../../compile/KERNEL_NAME_HERE
402 [1] If in doubt, -r might help here.
404 If this fails, go to the "To build a kernel" section.
406 To rebuild everything and install it on the current system.
407 -----------------------------------------------------------
409 Build a new kernel, see above.
411 To upgrade from 4.x-stable to current
412 -------------------------------------
414 make buildkernel KERNEL=YOUR_KERNEL_HERE
415 cp src/sys/${MACHINE_ARCH}/GENERIC.hints /boot/device.hints [2]
416 make installkernel KERNEL=YOUR_KERNEL_HERE
421 Make sure that you've read the UPDATING file to understand the
422 tweaks to various things you need. At this point in the life
423 cycle of current, things change often and you are on your own
424 to cope. The defaults can also change, so please read ALL of
425 the UPDATING entries.
427 Also, if you are tracking -current, you must be subscribed to
428 freebsd-current@freebsd.org. Make sure that before you update
429 your sources that you have read and understood all the recent
430 messages there. If in doubt, please track -stable which has
433 [1] If you have third party modules, such as vmware, you
434 should disable them at this point so they don't crash your
437 [2] If you have legacy ISA devices, you may need to create
438 your own device.hints to reflect your unique hardware
443 This file contains a list, in reverse chronological order, of major
444 breakages in tracking -current. Not all things will be listed here,
445 and it only starts on March 15, 2000. Updating files can found in
446 previous releases if your system is older than this.
448 Please filter your entries through Warner Losh (imp@village.org) so
449 that the style, formatting, etc of this file can be maintained.