The manpage for freebsd-update states that it will find the generic kernel under /boot/GENERIC which is useful for systems that have a custom kernel in /boot/kernel. It allowed the user to run on the custom build all the while keeping an up-to-date generic kernel around for emergencies. While this used to be true, it is no longer the case. The following thread from Jan 2013 mentions the same issue: https://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-questions/2013-January/247774.html
While this is in fact no longer the case, I cannot find the reference to '/boot/GENERIC' you are reporting. Can you show the '$FreeBSD$' line from the manual page? % zcat /usr/share/man/man8/freebsd-update.8.gz | grep 'FreeBSD: '
Hi Glen - You're absolutely right, of course. I meant to say handbook rather than manpage. https://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/updating-upgrading-freebsdupdate.html From section 24.2.2: <quote> Only the GENERIC kernel can be automatically updated by freebsd-update. If a custom kernel is installed, it will have to be rebuilt and reinstalled after freebsd-update finishes installing the updates. However, freebsd-update will detect and update the GENERIC kernel if /boot/GENERIC exists, even if it is not the current running kernel of the system. </quote> Sorry for the confusion!
Thank you for clarifying. Reassigned as a doc/ bug. Thank you for the report.
Are we saying that it is intentional that freebsd-update ignores /boot/GENERIC and that it will continue to do so in the foreseeable future? I did not see this change explicitly mentioned in the repository log: https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd/commits/master/usr.sbin/freebsd-update/freebsd-update.sh Thank you!
Correct. This is somewhat a result of the changes to the installer and how the base system distributions are packaged since 9.0-RELEASE, where /boot/$KERNEL was renamed to /boot/kernel.
Docs were updated in r44775 [1] and later r52888 [2], and I think this clarifies the situation. Thanks! [1] https://svnweb.freebsd.org/doc/head/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/cutting-edge/chapter.xml?r1=r44775&r2=44774&pathrev=52888 [2] https://svnweb.freebsd.org/doc/head/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/cutting-edge/chapter.xml?r1=52888&r2=52887&pathrev=52888