Re: Install kernel and userland without source?

["J. Lewis Muir" <jlmuir%imca-cat.org@localhost>]

On 02/10, J. Lewis Muir wrote:
> On 02/09, Greg Troxel wrote:
> > see pkgsrc/systils/etcmanage.
> > It will be slightly hard to get your head around, but then it can be
> > used to install a build and update the files in /etc, preserving local
> > changes, automatically.
> >
> > It may not do what you want, but I think it might.  It does what I want,
> > for some reason :-)
> 
> Yes, funny how that works.
> 
> I have used etcmanage in the past, and indeed it does do everything I
> want!  However, I went looking for the website for it and couldn't find
> it.  The Makefile HOMEPAGE variable is set to
> 
>   http://www.ir.bbn.com/~gdt/etcmanage/
> 
> but it's commented out, and the hostname doesn't resolve in DNS at the
> moment.  So, it's a little difficult to find out more about it and look
> at the source code at the moment.  (I assume the distribution file is on
> the pkgsrc servers, though.)

Yes, I found the distribution file at

  https://cdn.netbsd.org/pub/pkgsrc/distfiles/etcmanage-0.9.4.tar.gz

However, the README contains this rather scary notice stating that
etcmanage is alpha code:

  WARNING - ETCMANAGE MAY RENDER YOUR SYSTEM UNUSABLE

  Before starting, back up all of etc (e.g., tar up and leave tarball on
  /), and ensure that you can boot from another root (e.g. floppy, cd,
  etc.).  etcmanage is alpha code and comes with no sanity checks; it is
  possible to remove most of /etc.

  At this time, etcmanage should be used only by those who have backups
  and are very familiar with system administration and recovery from
  trashed root filesystems.

Is that still true?

Regards,

Lewis