Patch vs. Upgrade

[Andrew P.]

On 10/12/05, Cody Holland <cholland at redmoonbroadband.com> wrote:
> I'm still pretty new to the BSD world and wanted to throw out a question
> to see what kind of responses I get.  What is everyones take on what to
> do when security vulnerabities are discovered.  Do you upgrade your
> source (not always the easiest thing to do) or patch.  What are the pros
> and cons of patching?
>
> Thanks,
> Cody
> _______________________________________________
> freebsd-questions at freebsd.org mailing list
> http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions
> To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscribe at freebsd.org"
>

We cvsup the source, rebuild the whole system
or just the part that's mentioned in a security
advisory (one always says what exactly needs
to be recompiled).

Patching pros:
doesn't require you to have the source at hand
doesn't require any development tools (like gcc)

Patching cons:
quite limited version availability
not so reliable as recompiling

If things are not too tight on yout hard drive,
consider the cvsup way. It's very easy - and
very clearly described in the handbook.