# updating kernel and ezjail



## vand777 (May 22, 2011)

I always set up jails as described in the article "Application of Jails". But it is a little bit of a headache when you have to upgrade kernel and update all the jails. I started looking into a more convenient solution: sysutils/ezjail.

I set up test jails on my test server (I used sysutils/ezjail for these purposes). Now I'm trying to update kernel and my jails, and I'm facing a problem which I could not resolve by googling.

After I did an update as described in this article, I tried:

```
ezjail-admin update -i
mergemaster -iU -D /usr/jails/www
```

Unfortunately, I got the following:

```
...

*** There is no installed version of ./boot/device.hints


install: mkdir /usr/jails/www/boot: File exists
*** FATAL ERROR: Unable to install ./boot/device.hints to /usr/jails/www/boot
```

Any solutions? Maybe I did something wrong when updating ezjail jails?

P.S. I also tried to rebuild world when using *ezjail-admin update* - didn't help.


----------



## vand777 (May 22, 2011)

I found a related post but it does not look like a proper solution. At least, I doubt that everyone of you does these tricks every time when you're updating kernel and jails.


----------



## SirDice (May 23, 2011)

Check if /usr/jails/www/boot is a directory. It's probably a file.


----------



## swa (May 23, 2011)

An easy way is to use freebsd-update to update your basejail
`# ezjail-admin update -u`


----------



## vand777 (May 29, 2011)

SirDice said:
			
		

> Check if /usr/jails/www/boot is a directory. It's probably a file.



/usr/jails/www/boot is a link to /usr/jails/basejail/boot. File /usr/jails/basejail/boot/device.hints exists. Its permissions are 444. It didn't help when I changed it to 777. Same error.


----------



## vand777 (May 29, 2011)

Problem solved! 

Instead of using `mergemaster -iU -D /usr/jails/www`, now I'm using `mergemaster -D /usr/jails/www` and choose to delete temporary device.hints when asked.


----------

