[OpenIndiana-discuss] Infinite updates...

[Jim Klimov]

On 2014-03-27 10:02, John Doe wrote:
> If I do another "pkg update", it will redo the whole thing again.
> The server has been up for 326 days.
> Is it because I am forced to reboot to activate all the new updates and
> not just the kernel related ones?
>
> -----
>
> OpenIndiana (powered by illumos)    SunOS 5.11    oi_151a7    October 2012
> root at s5:~# pkg update
> WARNING: The boot environment being modified is not the active one.  Changes
> made in the active BE will not be reflected on the next boot.

Yes, as it says on the label here ;)

If you are only interested in specific "userland" updates,
and especially for your own packages (or some other non-OI
repository) you can use pkg flags like --deny-new-be and/or
--require-backup-be to manipulate the current running BE and
possibly leave a backup clone of what it was like before the
change.

However, regarding the "OS" packages for kernel and userland,
you never know in advance if any newly compiled software relies
on some features from a newer core (i.e. new libc functions or
whatever). So it is a good idea to coherently update the whole
bundle to the same revisions verified to work together (or at
least with known workarounds already discussed on the lists),
and reboot into the updated BE. If anything goes wrong, you
still have your old BE to reboot back into...

HTH,
//Jim Klimov