Open probonopd opened 3 years ago
Was the slim.conf.pkgsave
effect reproducible?
… How does e.g, the Mac work when "over-installing" a newer version of the OS?
IIRC it's quite blunt. Something like, writing all affected files to a temporary path then a move into place – typically without considering the before/after state of things (because things are so neatly separated).
The OS in a read-only image + user modifications in a read-write unionfs overlay would solve this very neatly...
https://github.com/helloSystem/hello/issues/37#issuecomment-751341802 recently I might have misunderstood what's to be expected within the constraints of 'live' media.
If the OS will be read-only: that's fine, if:
Alternatively: some way to periodically download then 'slot in', to the medium, an updated OS?
What I mean is that the OS should be conained in a read-only image file (in the worst case: ZFS dataset) but overlayed with read-writeable space so that any changes by the user get redirected into the read-writeable area. This way, the system appears entirely r/w to the user.
When an OS update comes along, the read-only file is switched to another one, but the user-generated content "on top" still is there.
NomadBSD kinda goes into this direction, but the underlying OS is not an image file but a partition, which makes updating it harder.
Why do I want an image file rather than a partition for the system: So that it can be most easily exchanged with another one, and users can easily keep multiple ones around.
The more I think about it, we should have a closer look at what NomadBSD is doing there. Using a file rather than a partition shouldn't be that hard to change... but then, as far as I remember, not even NomadBSD achieves that all parts of the system appear r/w to the user.
Overlapping:
https://github.com/helloSystem/ISO/issues/55#issue-775400817
pkg upgrade
seems to overwrite …
Not a problem with pkg(8); see https://github.com/helloSystem/hello/issues/67#issuecomment-772307831
From https://github.com/helloSystem/ISO/issues/135#issuecomment-800032910:
A system that works for, not against, you
Freedom: lets you load software without restrictions. … easy to modify applications. …
pkg-upgrade(8) is not pkg-update(8)
Why are there still these restrictions?
Why work against the natural desire to install, or update, an application?
This is the opposite of ease.
Why work against the natural desire to install, or update, an application?
Because you can end up with a half-outdated (hello components), untested (in this combination), messed up (regarding configuration files), and potentially no longer working (as you have shown) system. helloSystem is (also) for non-technical users who should never have to see a terminal.
Note that it says "not yet". We still "need to think about an update strategy" and it will probably be more like Android/iOS.
end up
Are boot environments forgotten again?
https://github.com/helloSystem/Utilities/issues/33#issuecomment-800529129
non-technical users who should never have to see a terminal.
If you stop crippling pkg
, these users will be blissfully unaware of the improvement.
Boot Environments just allow to go back once disaster has struck. I want to avoid the disaster in the first place. (As I am sure you find out you can use pkg.real
if you really know what you are doing.)
Note that pkg
is not mentioned in any helloSystem documentation at all.
pkg
is not mentioned
Maybe not mentioned at https://hellosystem.github.io/docs/index.html but pkg
is integral to FreeBSD.
From https://github.com/helloSystem/hello/issues/110#issuecomment-776911839:
… we want to stay "true FreeBSD" wherever possible. So at least for what comes as part of the Live ISO, I think the existing system wih ports and packages serves us well …
From main page https://github.com/helloSystem/hello#what:
Based on FreeBSD. Less, but better!
… Without lockdown. Without Big Brother. The user in full control.
Crippling pkg
, for any length of time, does not make helloSystem better than FreeBSD.
Boot Environments just allow to go back once disaster has struck.
That's a somewhat narrow vision.
Less dramatically: boot environments allow you to progress¸ with the option of going back.
If there's a fear of boot environments, then why is Boot Environments amongst the preferences for helloSystem?
There is no fear of BEs, but
pkg
, someone would need to package all of helloSystemIn order to be able to update the system (not just some apps) using pkg, someone would need to package all of helloSystem
If you use SystemImageKit and have a pure FreeBSD image with an early init script to copy over hello-specific files from a second image with geom_rowr or something, then you can use rsync to update the two.
Does this simplify things or complicate them?
So your idea is to have one image that contains an unmodified FreeBSD, and another one that contains the helloSystem modifications? Would work but would require a working union filesystem, because geom_rowr doesn't allow you to use the second image without the original first image. Also, I think even updating an unmodified FreeBSD is too complicated. I'd just replace the whole image with a new one. Similar to how OpenWrt works.
Yeah, pretty much. Even if you mount /var from a persistent partition, and symlink /etc, /Applications, and /Users to subfolders of /var, like Silverblue does, would that work?
up.bsd.lv Binary Upgrades Report
From https://up.bsd.lv/:
2021-07-26 - This Proof of Concept was extremely informative and is taking a break to build a Proof of Concept replacement for freebsd-update. Thank you everyone who helped out with it!
pkg
is integral to FreeBSD.
More accurately:
pkg
is a port – ports-mgmt/pkgpkg
that's installed with FreeBSD is for bootstrapping – when run, it invites installation of ports-mgmt/pkg.https://github.com/ChimeraOS/frzr
frzr is a deployment and automatic update mechanism for operating systems. It deploys pre-built systems via read-only btrfs subvolumes, thus ensuring safe and atomic updates that never interrupt the user.
Updated system images are downloaded at boot time and deployed to an entirely separate subvolume so as not to interfere with the currently running system. Upon next boot, the newly installed system is started and the old one is deleted, completely seamlessly and invisibly.
Persistence is handled by making /home and /var separate subvolumes mounted into the read-only root. /etc is made read-write via overlayfs.
Goes in the direction I mean. But I'd like to use filesystem image files rather than btrfs subvolumes.
Yes, that might be just what we need. As for the btrfs thing, we might be able to fork it...
Yes, and that's why we could fork it. ZFS is welcome, right? And that naturally uses a similar but more flexible subvolume system. So, could we not fork it and add ZFS support?
Or yeah, there's the option of having ufs2 images that can be downloaded, that may be better.
Also I want my Firefox updates ;~)
I tried bundling Firefox, but it's one of those apps that's damn near impossible to compile on a relatively slow computer, on FreeBSD. I might have a look at the port, see how they do it, I might be missing a compiler option.
As for Firefox, it shouldn't be too hard to make Application Bundles for each version. It shouldn't even be neccessary to re-compile it, it should be doable by using the pkgs as ingredients.
I want my Firefox updates
What's the issue?
Oh, I posted it on a separate issue.
Basically, updating Firefox updates Inkscape, python and Thunderbird, uninstalls krita and removes Qt, which explains why krita went but hey, now the system doesn't boot because my display manager crashes cause of no qt libraries.
a separate issue
Link please. Thanks.
I'll try find it in all these repositories
Quick hint: Entering h something
in Falkon will search for "something" in all helloSystem GitHub repositories.
https://github.com/search?q=org%3AhelloSystem+author%3Akettle-7+Firefox&type=Issues | https://github.com/search?q=org%3AhelloSystem+commenter%3Akettle-7+Firefox&type=issues @kettle-7 I can't find it. If not Firefox, what was the keyword?
267 (comment)
Thanks, that's somewhat lost (with unanswered questions) in the midst of an issue that may be non-related. I suggest raising a separate issue moving to a discussion so that it can be actionable and closable.
I feel it is an issue with pkg, not helloSystem.
I feel it is an issue with pkg,
I doubt it.
not helloSystem.
Have you raised the issue elsewhere?
Installation and Maintenance of Ports or Packages | The FreeBSD Forums
https://github.com/helloSystem/Filer/issues/3#issue-689461182 (2020-08-31)
Check Cirrus CI …
https://github.com/helloSystem/hello/issues/37#issuecomment-729508781 (2020-11-18)
… clone the project and build their own ISOs using public services (like GitHub and Cirrus CI) …
https://github.com/helloSystem/Utilities/issues/33 (2021-01-17)
System Update utility
https://github.com/helloSystem/ISO/issues/141#issuecomment-782751303 (2021-02-20)
… a continuous build pipeline without persistent storage.
https://github.com/helloSystem/ISO/issues/135#issuecomment-803570151 (2021-03-21)
https://cirrus-ci.com/github/helloSystem/ … interesting for helloSystem developers, testers, and power users ;-)
https://github.com/helloSystem/hello/issues/161#issuecomment-926129279 (2021-09-23)
- …
- … easy for anyone to fork. By not needing any infrastructure to build helloSystem (other than what GitHub and Cirrus CI provide), anyone can simply fork the repository and create their own modified ISOs. …
… built by a shell script from the official FreeBSD binary ingredients plus official FreeBSD ports, …
▼
https://github.com/helloSystem/ISO/blob/experimental/build.sh
https://github.com/helloSystem/Utilities/issues/33#issuecomment-945137549 (2021-10-18)
… if we really want end users to update the system using packages. …
For FreeBSD-based systems, use of things such as pkg-install(8) should be thought of as inevitable in most cases.
Addition of a package might require an upgrade to a previously-installed package, and so on.
Rewind: https://github.com/helloSystem/ISO/issues/135#issuecomment-780737686 (2021-02-17)
freebsd-12-2-release-p3-amd64
does not exist as an instance name on Cirrus CI …
Fast forward: https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-src/pull/543#issuecomment-944825265 there's /usr/sbin/freebsd-update
in the context of Cirrus CI:
(Compare with, for example, yesterday's experimental non-patched 12.2-RELEASE
, pictured under https://github.com/helloSystem/hello/discussions/219#discussioncomment-1490091.)
During initial installation, the installer uses bsdintall zfsboot
to create and mount ZFS partitions:
zroot/ROOT/default on /mnt (zfs, local, noatime, nfsv4acls)
zroot/tmp on /mnt/tmp (zfs, local, noatime, nosuid, nfsv4acls)
zroot/usr/home on /mnt/usr/home (zfs, local, noatime, nfsv4acls)
zroot/usr/ports on /mnt/usr/ports (zfs, local, noatime, nosuid, nfsv4acls)
zroot/usr/src on /mnt/usr/src (zfs, local, noatime, nfsv4acls)
zroot/var/audit on /mnt/var/audit (zfs, local, noatime, noexec, nosuid, nfsv4acls)
zroot/var/crash on /mnt/var/crash (zfs, local, noatime, noexec, nosuid, nfsv4acls)
zroot/var/log on /mnt/var/log (zfs, local, noatime, noexec, nosuid, nfsv4acls)
zroot/var/mail on /mnt/var/mail (zfs, local, nfsv4acls)
zroot/var/tmp on /mnt/var/tmp (zfs, local, noatime, nosuid, nfsv4acls)
zroot on /mnt/zroot (zfs, local, noatime, nfsv4acls)
On the running system, it will end up as
% zfs list
NAME USED AVAIL REFER MOUNTPOINT
zroot 1.40G 214G 96K /zroot
zroot/ROOT 1.36G 214G 96K none
zroot/ROOT/default 1.36G 214G 1.36G /
zroot/tmp 264K 214G 264K /tmp
zroot/usr 41.6M 214G 96K /usr
zroot/usr/home 41.3M 214G 41.3M /usr/home
zroot/usr/ports 96K 214G 96K /usr/ports
zroot/usr/src 96K 214G 96K /usr/src
zroot/var 692K 214G 96K /var
zroot/var/audit 96K 214G 96K /var/audit
zroot/var/crash 96K 214G 96K /var/crash
zroot/var/log 212K 214G 212K /var/log
zroot/var/mail 96K 214G 96K /var/mail
zroot/var/tmp 96K 214G 96K /var/tmp
Currently there is no way for the installer to install a newer version of the operating system "over" an existing installation, because the installer always runs bsdintall zfsboot
first.
We would like to change this so that users can install a newer version of the operating system over an existing one. For this we would like to:
zroot
mnt
and its subdirectories in the same manner as zfsboot install
does?`What are the exact commands needed to do this from the Live ISO?
Actually, since we would be using a clone, we might not even need to boot into the Live ISO to install the new OS over the clone but could do it from the running system. At least that is how I understand it - that you can snapshot and clone the running system without bad side effects.
Is creating a "recursive snapshot" what we need here? sudo zfs snapshot -r zroot@forupdate
.
We now can do ls /.zfs/snapshot/forupdate/
.
Now we can make a writable clone:
sudo zfs clone zroot@forupdate zroot/cloneforupdate
.
Then we get sudo ls /zroot/cloneforupdate
but there is nothing in there.
There are no less than 11(!) zfs "mountpoints" listed. How do we get clones of all of them mounted in the correct nested/recursive way under /mnt
?
Using Boot Environments would probably be the correct way to do this, but Boot Environments do not cover all zfs datasets, at least not by default. So none of these are covered by Boot Environments:
zroot/tmp on /tmp (zfs, local, noatime, nosuid, nfsv4acls)
zroot/usr/home on /usr/home (zfs, local, noatime, nfsv4acls)
zroot/var/log on /var/log (zfs, local, noatime, noexec, nosuid, nfsv4acls)
zroot on /zroot (zfs, local, noatime, nfsv4acls)
zroot/var/audit on /var/audit (zfs, local, noatime, noexec, nosuid, nfsv4acls)
zroot/var/crash on /var/crash (zfs, local, noatime, noexec, nosuid, nfsv4acls)
zroot/var/mail on /var/mail (zfs, local, nfsv4acls)
zroot/var/tmp on /var/tmp (zfs, local, noatime, nosuid, nfsv4acls)
zroot/usr/ports on /usr/ports (zfs, local, noatime, nosuid, nfsv4acls)
zroot/usr/src on /usr/src (zfs, local, noatime, nfsv4acls)
Can this be changed?
Just using cpdup -o
overwrites critical files n /etc
like the user and password files. We would need to find a way to spare them out, which means that we would need to know which ones should and should not be updated when installing a newer OS version over an existing one.
Possibly freebsd-update
has clever mechaninsms for this, but it asks the user questions (by default), which we don't want (and have found a way around).
Its config file has
# Paths which start with anything matching an entry in an UpdateIfUnmodified
# statement will only be updated if the contents of the file have not been
# modified by the user (unless changes are merged; see below).
UpdateIfUnmodified /etc/ /var/ /root/ /.cshrc /.profile
and it looks like our update strategy will need something along those lines. Ideally without having to reinvent the wheel.
So the question is, can freebsd-update
use a local directory instead of a remote server as its source?
vermaden says:
Its pointless to have /home or /usr/ports on ZFS Boot Environment but if you must, then just move these needed datasets into the BE like that:
zfs rename -u zroot/usr/src zroot/ROOT/default/usr/src
Some more thoughts on "over-installing" (installing over an existing OS):
How can we come up with a list of files in /etc that must not be touched by over-installing a new OS? /etc/passwd
is an obvious one but which others are like it?
Conceptually, i think what we'd want is a diff from the old to the new version, and apply that diff to /etc
during an update. So that changes made locally by the user would persist, but changes made by the new OS version would also get applied.
And it is completely unclear to me how the package database would have to be treated. Because the update would clearly install newer versions of the packages, while user-installed packages would still be on the system.
I think this is roughly what freebsd-update
can do.
Probably sysadmins in large corporations have quite some tricks on their sleeves for this sort of thing...
Assume we want to implement this:
When running from the Live ISO, can we get the whole zpool with all of its datasets mounted under /tmp
so that the installer could do its thing there without having to format the whole disk?
Apparently yes but not quite because we are missing, e.g., /mnt/etc
and /mnt/boot
:
# mount -t tmpfs tmpfs /mnt
# zpool import -f -R /mnt zroot
# mount
(...)
tmpfs on /mnt (tmpfs, local)
zroot on /mnt/zroot (zfs, local, noatime, nfsv4acls)
zroot/tmp on /mnt/tmp (zfs, local, noatime, nosuid, nfsv4acls)
zroot/var/audit on /mnt/var/audit (zfs, local, noatime, noexec, nosuid, nfsv4acls)
zroot/var/tmp on /mnt/var/tmp (zfs, local, noatime, nosuid, nfsv4acls)
zroot/usr/home on /mnt/usr/home (zfs, local, noatime, nfsv4acls)
zroot/usr/ports on /mnt/usr/ports (zfs, local, noatime, nosuid, nfsv4acls)
zroot/var/crash on /mnt/var/crash (zfs, local, noatime, noexec, nosuid, nfsv4acls)
zroot/var/mail on /mnt/var/mail (zfs, local, nfsv4acls)
zroot/var/log on /mnt/var/log (zfs, local, noatime, noexec, nosuid, nfsv4acls)
zroot/usr/src on /mnt/usr/src (zfs, local, noatime, nfsv4acls)
This is all way too complicated.
And how can we make a Boot Environment/writable clone of all of the above?
So, trying the folloing approach:
bectl create overinstalled
and mount it using bectl mount overinstalled
/boot/rootfs.uzip
(e.g., by double-clicking it)rootfs.uzip
over the Boot Environment, excluding certain files (below) using cpdup -I -j0 -o -X /path/to/cpignore /media/ufs /tmp/be_mount.xxxx
How can we come up with a list of files in /etc that must not be touched by over-installing a new OS?
Maybe using a cpignore
along the lines of
# These files should not be overwritten when using
#
# bectl create overinstalled
# bectl mount overinstalled
# cpdup -I -j0 -o -X /path/to/cpignore /media/ufs /tmp/be_mount.xxxx
# to install the operating system over an existing installation
# bectl activate overinstalled
*/etc/resolv.conf
*/etc/fstab
*/etc/passwd
*/etc/spwd.db
*/etc/pwd.db
*/etc/master.passwd
*/etc/group
*/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf
*/etc/login.conf.db
*/etc/localtime
*/etc/opiekeys
*/etc/hostid
# The next file contains zfs_enable="YES" which is CRUCIAL
*/etc/rc.conf
*/etc/rc.conf.local
*/etc/ssh/*
# Essential files for booting into a graphical desktop are even in /usr/local
*/usr/local/etc/sudo*
*/usr/local/etc/pam.d/*
# Contains hardcoded user account for autologin
*/usr/local/etc/slim.conf*
Allan Jude talks about this exact problem in https://youtu.be/YcdFln0vO4U?t=582.
(Side rant: This whole user accounts/home directories/passwords/pam/sudo/Xauthority/cookies thing is a bit... unwieldy. All of this appears to be scattered around in various files at different locations. One single database would be much neater. This whole thing seems to be very finicky.)
With this, we can reboot into the Boot Environment and we can log in as a user on the console but slim
refuses to work, saying "Waiting for X server to begin accepting connections" in /var/log/slim.log
.
xauth list
says timeout in locking authority file /.Xauthority
.
Why is it searching for that file in /
rather than in $HOME
? echo $HOME
returns /
. Why? Turns out /usr/home
is not mounted at all. Why? __Edit: Turns out that zfs_enable="YES"
was missing in /etc/rc.conf
. When we exclude this file from being overwritten, it works.__
Relevant video: ZFS Powered Magic Upgrades Using boot environments for atomic in-place upgrades by Allan Jude
According to https://youtu.be/YcdFln0vO4U?t=1000 this can be used to boot the new Boot Environment once:
zfsbootcfg zfs:zroot/ROOT/overinstalled:
(TODO: Understand and potentially make use of kenv zfs-bootonce
.)
@jsm222 helloDesktop https://wiki.freebsd.org/helloDesktop seems like a very good idea, if it can be in ports for FreeBSD https://github.com/helloSystem/hello/issues/161 and maintained.
@jsm222 helloDesktop https://wiki.freebsd.org/helloDesktop seems like a very good idea, if it can be in ports for FreeBSD helloSystem/hello#161 and maintained.
Would be a nice thing indeed. I looked a little into it again today, but got caught up with qterminal crashing, when the menu is running.. When all packages needed for helloSystem are in the ports tree freebsd-upgrade and pkg upgrade would indeed not break anything.
For the record
…
pkg check --dependencies --dry-run
Maybe we should have
Update.app
run this command always as its first thing? …
If you allow pkg-upgrade(8) to complete its work (for your current case, you should probably run repeatedly), then pkg check --dependencies --dry-run
should find nothing missing.
Hello, i hope i am not in the wrong post/issue, but before finding this post i decided to update the BSD system below hellosystem following those steps https://www.freebsd.org/releases/13.2R/installation/#upgrade now the system is updated, but i believes something wrong happened ... the video driver is not found anymore (standard i915) and quite a lot of error (e.g. runnig falkon or dock) No more logout, no more reboot or halt from the menu (still working if i do sudo reboot / sudo halt from terminal but halt is hanging forever) and other stuff probably.
not a big issue is a test machine i am playing with so i can re-install the whole shebang
but i think i learned to not run the update of the system as i did.
which one is the right way? should i wait for the next ISO? just out of curiosity
thanks
M
Hello @m4lin. Currently we don't have an update system in place. So you need to do a clean reinstallation of helloSystem every time. We know that we need to think about an update stratefy, but so far we haven't found a good way of doing it. One way would be to package all helloSystem components as proper FreeBSD packages, but so far no one has succeeded in doing this.
We should use the Install.app in the built image to upgrade the system, which only needs to replace the system files, which can also preserve user files and test the latest developer preview version. This has another advantage, that is, it can reduce the problems of missing packages when users use terminals to update online, or it should be said that it is easy to update to the latest DP build offline immediately, without the need for a long single download of each package before installation
pkg upgrade
seems to overwrite our configuration.For example, our changed rc scripts are seemingly replaced with those from the pacakges, and our carefully configured
slim.conf
is moved toslim.conf.pkgsave
.How does e.g, the Mac work when "over-installing" a newer version of the OS?