[SOLVED] How to 'upgradepkg' following security advisory instrux

Please forgive my ignorance. I have asked this before but never got a specific answer, only suggestions for 'upgrading entire system'. That is not what I want to do.

The latest 'security advisory', 3/13/2020 for mozilla-thunderbird-68.6.0-i686-1_slack14.2.txz, for slackware64 14.2, has the following specific instructions:

------------------------------------------------------------
Installation instructions:
+------------------------+

Upgrade the package as root:
# upgradepkg mozilla-thunderbird-68.6.0-i686-1_slack14.2.txz
------------------------------------------------------------

Rebooted, logged in as root, online, opened cmd window, entered command above: result, nothing. cursor drops to next line, blank.

Before: my thunderbird --version: Thunderbird 60.8.0

After: my thunderbird --version: Thunderbird 60.8.0

My /etc/slackpkg/mirrors has, for US, slackware64 14.2, uncommented:

http:////ftp.osuosl.org/.2/slackware/slackware64-14.2/

Near top of 'mirrors' file, instruction says to use only http, not ftp.

I've followed instructions exactly. What am I missing here?

Is this patch/update ONLY for 32-bit systems maybe? If so, my bad.

Well, maybe I missed the '64' needed to modify instruction line? Again, my bad. Going back to change it.. will report results.

Thanks, jrc

Well, at least that got some action when I did, as root:

# upgradepkg mozilla-thunderbird-68.6.0-x86_64-1_slack14.2.txz

but result is: "file not found".

This is the problem I had trying to do this a couple years ago. It would seem the instruction is incomplete. Somehow, the file needs to be downloaded to my machine, I guess. But how, and to where? I'm not familiar with all the 'get' commands,

OK - got it down with Firefox -simple. But not sure where it should go -

If your intention is just upgrade thunderbird, you should execute

slackpkg upgrade thunderbird

and hit OK in dialog menu.
In this case slackpkg will automatically download and install an appropriate version of specified package (thunderbird) from an uncommented mirror.

OK thanks for patience to anyone who is irritated.

1. Got the package down from osu by entering full patch name, (ftp://ftp... from the advisory) into the top URL line in Firefox, <RETURN>. This results in a save/execute dialog with which I can save the patch anywhere.

2. Read the 'upgradepkg' man page which includes the 'percent syntax' just as in the Slack Book.

3. Logged in as root; copied the patch to '/', so won't need to wonder what will happen if in some other touchy directory.

4. Found old package name in /var/log/packages - need FULL name, ie thunderbird is 'mozilla-thunderbird...'

5. As root, execute '%' syntax as in man page or slack book:

# upgradepkg old_name%new_name

done - takes a couple minutes but works fine.

Thanks again for patience. Hope this might help some other person.

jrc

Originally Posted by jrch OK thanks for patience to anyone who is irritated. 1. Got the package down from osu by entering full patch name, (ftp://ftp... from the advisory) into the top URL line in Firefox, <RETURN>. This results in a save/execute dialog with which I can save the patch anywhere. 2. Read the 'upgradepkg' man page which includes the 'percent syntax' just as in the Slack Book. 3. Logged in as root; copied the patch to '/', so won't need to wonder what will happen if in some other touchy directory. 4. Found old package name in /var/log/packages - need FULL name, ie thunderbird is 'mozilla-thunderbird...' 5. As root, execute '%' syntax as in man page or slack book: # upgradepkg old_name%new_name done - takes a couple minutes but works fine. Thanks again for patience. Hope this might help some other person. jrc

Just to simplify and hopefully explain a few things...

upgradepkg and installpkg only work on files that are local, meaning they are downloaded to your system. You need to provide either the relative path or absolute path. They do not download packages from remote servers. That can be done via slackpkg once configured properly.

Also, in regards to using the percent sign for upgradepkg... this is only needed when the package name has changed. In this case, since both packages were called mozilla-thunderbird, it is not needed and you only need to specify the new package that you want to upgrade.

I would highly suggest looking into slackpkg and learning to use it. It will allow you to simply update your Slackware to the latest patches that Pat has put out. Word of caution, make sure you select the right Slackware version for your mirror. Since you're on 14.2, you'll want to make sure you select a 14.2 mirror, not a "current" mirror, as that is the development version of Slackware that will eventually lead to 15.0.

Once slackpkg is configured, you can easily update the system via the following commands:

slackpkg update-gpg # Only needed the first time after selecting a mirror
slackpkg update
slackpkg install-new
slackpkg upgrade-all

See the Configure a Package Manager section of SlackDocs for more detail

> Bass...

Thanks for your helpful comments.

As I said early on, my intent was not to upgrade the whole system.
The instrux ON THE ADVISORY say to do it, for that specific advisory, with the simple command,

Upgrade the package as root:
# upgradepkg sudo-1.8.31-i586-1_slack14.2.txz

(understood that the version - or 64 - or whatever is
appropriate in the list of patches - should be inserted...)

I had wanted to do this for a single update, not for the whole system. I'm sure (now) whoever wrote that assumed that we would all "understand" that the package had to be downloaded first. I didn't, I do now. So maybe some of the simpler commands suggested by others above make more sense.

Actually, I'm very grateful to those who donate their effort and skills to the 'Slackware Documentation Project'. I'm not always sure where to find the latest versions of specific titles; I've always purchased (or downloaded) the 'Slackware Book' whenever an update is available or during version changes, etc; but it is not very 'deep'. As with any project, 'documentation' (or manual-writing) is not a popular pastime. Well-written software (and other) 'manuals' are extremely rare. FM's and TM's come to mind from the prehistoric past.

I'm sorry if it's not clear, but I'm also grateful to those, like yourself, who take a few minutes to explain things. You and others, like Didier, upnort, etc, have provided a number of very helpful insights for me.

I may even get to like piano concertos over time.

jrc

Originally Posted by jrch As I said early on, my intent was not to upgrade the whole system. The instrux ON THE ADVISORY say to do it, for that specific advisory, with the simple command,

I'm not sure if there's a misunderstanding or you're trying to accomplish a specific thing, but "upgrading the whole system" would consist of installing all the patches that Pat has put out, which would include mostly security advisories (although there's other important updates like glibc-zoneinfo, which updates timezones for the system). There's been 568 security fixes pushed for 14.2 (although some are for the same program like Firefox and Thunderbird). I wasn't suggesting upgrading the system to -current, just automating downloading and installing the patches that Pat puts out for 14.2.

If you haven't installed all the security fixes for 14.2, then your system could be quite vulnerable to attack. Also, all packages that are submitted to SBo are tested against the latest patched version of Slackware at that time. There's a possibility that some packages may not build if you're not fully patched.

Well, I may now be in just the situation you speak of, bass.

Installed slack64 14.2 on another machine - relatively new, lots memory, HD, etc.
Tried to update Thunderbird via single procedure as I described here - it seemed to install but failed to run.

I'll switch to another post, 'Thunderbird won't run after update', to give details. You will probably find plenty to comment on, thanks in advance if you can help.

jrc