re-run sysmerge

[stanl]

Once again I display my ignorance re all things computer related.

I ran sysupgrade this morning and when finished was told I had to re-run sysmerge because of differences between /etc/mail/aliases and ./etc/mail/aliases.

My first stumbling block is that I don't see any ./etc/mail/aliases.

Then, the only differences I see are:

-_switchd /dev/null
-root: slaurel
+# root:

But when I look at /etc/mail/aliases, the file looks the same as it always was with
_switchd /dev/null and
root: slaurel.

What am I not understanding and what action should I take?

Thank you

[jggimi]

I would start by examining your current /etc/mail/aliases file. What is it's last modification date? Does it have your local modifications?

Sysmerge keeps backups of your local merged files. You can find backups of aliases, if any, with # find /var/sysmerge/backups -name aliases -ls.

Sysmerge also keeps a copy of the the most recent Project files to compare with your local files, should you need to do so manually. You can extract a copy of the reference aliases file from the tarball /var/sysmerge/etc.tgz with something like # tar -C /tmp -xzf /var/sysmerge/etc.tgz ./etc/mail/aliases. That command will extract the reference file into /tmp/etc/mail/aliases for examination.


At the end of this, if you have to correct the aliases file, don't forget to run newaliases(8).

[stanl]

jgggimi - I ran the command to extract the tarball as you suggested and compared the 2 versions. The one in /tmp is v1.70 2022/06/28 while the one in /etc/mail is v1.68 2020/01/24.
I copied the newer one over, corrected #root: so it reads root: slaurel and ran newaliases.
My (hopefully) last question concerns _switchd /dev/null which the new version removed. Does this mean I no longer need that line in the aliases file?

As always thank you very much for your assistance.

[jggimi]

See the "Following -current FAQ" regarding switchd(8).