dfly-update: Simple shell tool to update a DFly using release/snapshot IMG

[Carsten Mattner]

On 3/12/18, Aaron LI <aly at aaronly.me> wrote:
> On Mon, 12 Mar 2018 12:07:46 +0000
> Carsten Mattner <carstenmattner at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> > 6. identify the new/changed /etc files, rename the conflicting ones
>> > with
>> > suffix ".__new__" and then copy over
>> > 7. get obsolete files from Makefile_upgrade.inc and remove them
>> > 8. umount, remove image file, show the *.__new__ files need manual
>> > merge
>>
>> Thanks Aaron, this is nice. For step 6, didn't OpenBSD have an /etc
>> update/diff tool to make this easier?
>
> Thanks for reminding the OpenBSD's tool (didn't know that before), will have
> a look at that in the following days.  I only knew FreeBSD's mergemaster, but
> I think it maybe to heavy.
>
> Nevertheless, manually merge several files works OK for me :-)

I couldn't find the name of OpenBSD's tool, just remembered it existed
when I tried it more than 10 years ago.

>> I also wonder if it would make sense to emulate FreeBSD's effort to
>> package'ize their base system. You know, a couple (e.g. <5) packages that
>> comprise base, and being able to upgrade those like binary packages.
>
> FreeBSD's packaging base system using pkg may be too complicated for DFly,
> and requires much more efforts...  Someone more experienced and dedicated
> is required to bring that to DFly :D

Sure thing. If we can get dfly-update (port of freebsd-update), then
that would already be a huge win for managing multiple machines. Might
require support by the autobuilders to output relevant signed archives.
See The Update Framework for an update mechanism that is safe in light
of key signing chaos and also is secure without HTTPS. It's quite nice
and there might be a lightweight implementation that could be used in
base for dfly-update.