Re: kmod ports and conflicts when upgrading

On 12 Sep 2023, at 10:42, Baptiste Daroussin <bapt@freebsd.org> wrote:
> 
> On Tue, Sep 12, 2023 at 10:25:40AM +0100, David Chisnall wrote:
>> Hi,
>> 
>> As part of the work to run FreeBSD containers on other operating systems via Podman, I have written a device driver for the QEMU firmware config interface.  I am currently building this via an overlay port, but aim to upstream it into -CURRENT soonish.  In parallel, I’d like to add a port for it.
>> 
>> Both ports and base install kernel modules in the same place and so I’m worried that someone will install the port, update FreeBSD to a version that includes the module in base, and then end up with problems when the uninstall the port (or have the upgrade fail because the file already exists).
>> 
> 
> Base installs modules in /boot/kernel, ports insyall them in /boot/modules so
> you don't have the problem.

Oh, great, I missed the distinction.

>> I’m sure this problem must have been solved for other things that have migrated in a similar path.  Is there a way to automatically uninstall a port when doing a major version upgrade or when a base-system thing tries to write to the same location (or, at least, ensure that it is not removed when the package is removed later)?
> 
> no there is no mecanism for that except if you use pkgbase, in this case if you
> have a conflict aka a file installed in the same location (which is not the case
> for kernel modules from ports) then it will propose you to remove the
> conflicting package.

Sounds like it should just work and the next autoremove will remove the one that isn’t needed anymore.  Thanks.

David