2006-Jan-26

My commit to gtar-info several months ago had a typo which caused major bulk build failure for another developer. I used INFODIR instead of INFO_DIR. INFODIR was probably set by mk files as /usr/local/info or something else. So wrong directory was pre-created and info directory became a plain text file.

I do not use mtree on a few systems for a few years, including many bulk builds. mtree is not used for unprivileged builds. mtree is not used for pkgviews. And mtree is not used when INSTALLATION_DIRS is defined -- which many packages do.

I received an email from a Linux developer who is starting to use pkgsrc for a new Linux distribution. We may collaborate on this (as I have been using pkgsrc for my Linux distro for a few years.)

Sent a freelance query to magazine to write aboute pkgsrc.

Looking at pfil(9) more. It was added to NetBSD over seven years before a second packet filter was included with NetBSD. I see that FreeBSD and DragonFly both use pfil, but don't appear to have kernel options or configurations for it. (DragonFly it is standard and FreeBSD includes it when ether and inet are included and if I understand correctly, NetBSD includes it when ipfilter or pf or PFIL_HOOKS (lowercased) is included).

The developer, mrg, told me: the number of patches required for integrating IP filter dropped and the LKM no longer required any special support builtin to the kernel (besides pfil(9)). And that the idea was that other packet filter technologies of the time might be better and with pfil(9) it would be easy for others to show it. But the main reason for it was to supply the necessary hooks for such a system so that each filter wouldn't need to go modify the normal ip input/output processing path.

He also told me there were a few non-src (non-NetBSD) tree users of pfil over the years, but he couldn't think of a specific one.

Worked on patching brconfig(8) manual page and brconfig.c to add a pfil and -pfil switch to be more generic that ipf and -ipf. (Need to test, ask for review and commit.)

Updated a laptop from NetBSD 3.0-BETA to -current.

When using etcupdate, ne sure to not use -b on a full directory (more than just etc), because it will remove it all when it is done!

Also do not use "etc" at end of -b path, or it will check new directories like:

Create /X11? (y/[n]) y

And that will really create /X11 on top filesystem!

I also had problems with merging: "sdiff: subsidiary program `vi' failed". But I have not looked for the problem yet.

Did some testing of brconfig command. But I don't have two physical interfaces on the test laptop.