Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!mailrus!nrl-cmf!ames!eos!aurora!labrea!decwrl!pyramid!prls!philabs!micomvax!zap!iros1!mcgill-vision!mouse
From: mouse@mcgill-vision.UUCP (der Mouse)
Newsgroups: comp.sources.d
Subject: Re: Wiping out /bin in OS upgrades
Message-ID: <1007@mcgill-vision.UUCP>
Date: 17 Mar 88 10:26:36 GMT
References: <1904@epimass.EPI.COM> <2662@orstcs.CS.ORST.EDU> <1682@desint.UUCP>
Organization: McGill University, Montreal
Lines: 34

In article <1682@desint.UUCP>, geoff@desint.UUCP (Geoff Kuenning) writes:
> In article <2662@orstcs.CS.ORST.EDU> hakanson@mist.UUCP (Marion Hakanson) writes:
>> I agree, it probably will be standard.  But anything in /bin is
>> guaranteed to be lost in the next OS upgrade.  We try to not even
>> add stuff to /usr/lib around here.  Lately, we even stay out of /etc
>> as much as possible.

A good idea.  We do our best to keep /bin, /lib, /usr/lib, and so on
pristine as far as possible (a policy which has paid off on occasion).
Everything local goes under /local/bin, /local/lib, /local/etc, etc.
(For example, if I ever do install perl, it will not, ever, go in /bin.
It will go in /local/bin, and if it doesn't like it, tough.  We have
one local program in /bin, and I now believe that was a mistake.)

> (In the "arrogant and stupid" department, BTW, the last update I got
> from Microport even wiped out /etc/passwd!  Now that takes the cake.)

Our SA was flaming about the Sun upgrades a few months ago.  It appears
that Sun upgrades are very painless if you run a standard system and
extremely painful otherwise.  I don't recall the full list of files
that it destroyed, but among them: /etc/rc (almost, barely, just
possibly, excusable), /etc/rc.local (inexcusable), /etc/inetd.co...uh,
/etc/servers (inexcusable), and on one of our machines, even
/etc/passwd (somehow).  I think there were a handful of others, too; we
were finding configuration files that got destroyed for the next week.

If anyone is curious enough, I can ask him what files got destroyed;
I'm sure he remembers much better than I do (after all, he's the one
who did the upgrade).

					der Mouse

			uucp: mouse@mcgill-vision.uucp
			arpa: mouse@larry.mcrcim.mcgill.edu