upkeep 1.4.3

Portage update helper commands.

Easier Gentoo system maintenance

This is a set of commands to simplify maintaining a Gentoo system.

Documentation

esync

This command needs eix installed to fully function. It runs eix-sync. This is intended for use as a cron job. I use it daily.

This command can run layman -S for you if you pass -l or --run-layman.

emerges

This command will do the following:

• Update Portage
• Update @world with options --with-bdeps=y, --update, --deep, --newuse
• Update live installations of packages (@live-rebuild)
• Run emerge @preserved-rebuild
• Run systemctl daemon-reexec (if applicable)
• Update the kernel

There are flags to disable most parts of this functionality, such as --no-upgrade-kernel. Pass --help to see all the options.

Automatic kernel update process

The automatic kernel update will only work if there are 2 kernels displayed with the command eselect --brief kernel list. The first one in the list must be the active kernel. The second one is the one to upgrade to. After switching to the new kernel, a .config must exist in /usr/src/linux or the command will not run make. If the configuration exists at /proc/config.gz it will be used.

If emerges fails to build the kernel because of the state of eselect kernel list, you can fix it and re-run the update by running upgrade-kernel.

The old kernel data in /boot will be stored in /root/.upkeep/old-kernels.

Only systemd-boot and GRUB (grub-mkconfig) combined with Dracut are supported for the kernel update. Valid configurations must be present in /etc.

If you want to only rebuild the kernel, run rebuild-kernel.

systemd-boot, UEFI Secure Boot, and signing

To support signing a kernel, create a file /etc/upkeeprc with contents like the following:

[systemd-boot]
sign-key = /etc/efi/db.key
sign-cert = /etc/efi/db.crt

Signing is done with sbsign (app-crypt/sbsigntools).

The kernel should be built with CONFIG_EFI_STUB=y and the full command line set in CONFIG_CMDLINE. Under Secure Boot, systemd-boot will not read options specified in an entry configuration file.

ecleans

This command will run the following commands (or equivalents):

• emerge --depclean
• emerge @preserved-rebuild
• revdep-rebuild
• eclean-dist --deep
• rm -fR /var/tmp/portage/*