Subject: Installing over the top of manufacturer's version

From: [email-masked] (Mr J. Attwood)
Date: Mon, 10 Feb 1997 17:08:18 GMT

I'm trying to upgrade from 2.4 to 2.4.2-beta-12, and find that the default
install (for Solaris 2.5) installs ftpd as /usr/sbin/in.ftpd and the man
pages under /usr/share/man.

Can anyone reassure me as to how resiliant this would be if the system were
to be patched, say to cope with the latest CERT scare. Would install_patch
notice that /usr/sbin/in.ftpd was not as originally installed, or that its
manpage had been replaced, or might it blithely overwrite the wu-ftpd version
with a patched but nowhere near as good Solaris version?

Thanks in advance,

John Attwood.
[email-masked]

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From: Yanni <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 10 Feb 1997 09:37:05 -0800

On Mon, Feb 10, 1997 at 9:08:18 AM, [email-masked] (Mr J. 
Attwood) wrote:

> Can anyone reassure me as to how resiliant this would be if the system 
> were to be patched, say to cope with the latest CERT scare. Would 
install_
> patch notice that /usr/sbin/in.ftpd was not as originally installed, or 
> that its manpage had been replaced, or might it blithely overwrite the 
> wu-ftpd version with a patched but nowhere near as good Solaris 
version? 

i personally suggest that you NEVER install over original system files. 
imho, it is always a good idea to keep installed stuff separate from 
system stuff.

the reason is that you want to be able to stick in the solaris cd-rom 
and not have to worry or try to remember which files will get hosed and 
which won't, the same goes with patches...

that is what /usr/local/* is for...

-jon

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From: Michael Helm <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 10 Feb 1997 09:36:22 -0800

> with a patched but nowhere near as good Solaris version?

Based on my experiences with sendmail, it would most likely 
blithely overwrite the rogue wu-ftpd binary it found.

It will do this (at least vis a vis sendmail) even if you roll
up a separate package for it & "pkgadd" it.

You can probably overcome this by writing an appropriate patch
package, but I don't know how to do this yet.  The only documentation
for how Sun does this is in the installpatch script, as far as
I have been able to tell.  If anyone knows more about this I'd
like to talk to you.