Updating Sources with CVSup

Applicable to: FreeBSD 4.x
Updated: July 8, 2002

This Sheet describes the procedure used to keep the FreeBSD source code and the ports collection up to date. Before performing this procedure, you should review the FreeBSD Handbook articles Staying Stable with FreeBSD and Using CVSup.

1. If sources are not yet installed in /usr/src, use Sysinstall to install them:

   # /stand/sysinstall

   Choose Configure|Distributions|Source.

   While CVSup will install the sources if they are not present, your CVSup run will go much faster (especially if you have a slow Internet connection) if you first install the sources from the CD, so that CVSup only has to make differential changes.

2. If not already done, install the CVSup port:

   # cd /usr/ports/net/cvsup-without-gui && make && make install && make clean

3. Create the /usr/local/etc/cvsup/sup directory tree:

   # mkdir -p /usr/local/etc/cvsup/sup

4. Create /usr/local/etc/cvsup/sup/supfile:

   *default host=cvsup8.FreeBSD.org (Pick a mirror near you—see below)
   *default base=/usr/local/etc/cvsup
   *default prefix=/usr
   *default release=cvs tag=RELENG_4
   *default delete use-rel-suffix
   *default compress
   src-all
   ports-all tag=.

   Mirror sites are listed here.

5. Create the refuse file /usr/local/etc/cvsup/sup/refuse

   If you don't have a lot of disk space to spend on language-specific collections, create a refuse file with these entries (omit languages from this list that you actually want):

   ports/chinese
   ports/french
   ports/german
   ports/hebrew
   ports/japanese
   ports/korean
   ports/russian
   ports/ukrainian
   ports/vietnamese

6. Create /usr/local/bin/cvsrun:

   #!/bin/sh
   echo Subject: `hostname` weekly cvsup run output
   /usr/local/bin/cvsup -g -L 2 /usr/local/etc/cvsup/sup/supfile

   Make the scripts executable by root only:

   # chown root:wheel /usr/local/bin/cvsrun
   # chmod u+x /usr/local/bin/cvsrun

7. Edit /etc/crontab to run CVSup every Friday night:

   # Run cvsup every Friday night at 10:00 pm.
   0  22  *  *  5  root  /usr/local/bin/cvsrun | sendmail root

8. Run cvsup to update the sources:

   # /usr/local/bin/cvsrun