Staying up to Date

Once you have Plan 9 installed, you'll probably want to keep your installation up to date with respect to the changes that come out of the labs. Assuming you have decent network access, the easiest way to do this is to use replica/pull.

UPDATING

To update your system, a script named 'pull' is available and is located in the directory '/usr/glenda/bin/rc' (user glenda's home directory). To execute this script, just type:

pull

Your system will be updated and you should see the files which are updated scrolling down your window. If you do not have the pull script installed, see the instructions below for your filesystem type.

For more information, see replica(1).

Pull uses the file server sources.cs.bell-labs.com. You can poke around by running:

9fs sources
cd /n/sources
ls

FOSSIL

To update your fossil file system, you can usually just run the following command:

replica/pull -v /dist/replica/network

The -v option puts pull in verbose mode, allowing you to see the current activity it is performing.

The -v option causes replica/pull to produce output, stating what it's doing. This is useful if you're interested in seeing what's being updated, but can produce lots of output, so it's best to run it in a scrolling window or omit the -v.

Note that replica/pull takes care not to overwrite local changes, and flags conflicts with error messages so that you can resolve them by hand.

If you have done local modifications , pull will not overwrite the changed file if an update occurs on sources. Use

pull -s path/to/file
where 'path/to/file' is the absolute path without the leading / . Be aware of running 'pull -s' without specifying any files, as local configuration files may be updated undesirably.

OTHER ACCESS

You can also get access to the bleeding-edge sources and extra software by typing:

9fs sources
ls /n/sources

In case you don't have a Plan 9 network connection, you can always download the nightly CD image from the download page and use it to update.

mount /srv/9660 /n/dist /tmp/plan9.iso

If you burned a CD with the unpacked image, the steps are

9660srv
mount  /srv/9660 /n/dist /dev/sdD0/data
replica/pull -v /dist/replica/cd

assuming you have the CDROM drive as the master on the second IDE controller.

SEE ALSO

replica(1)