I always find myself having to dig out the following commands after I've upgraded my systems. Here's my contribution to working smarter, not harder.

Ports

• Unpack ports.tgz in the /usr directory.

• The following command will update the ports tree using anonymous cvs:

  # cvs -q -d anoncvs@anoncvs3.usa.openbsd.org:/cvs up -r \
  OPENBSD_4_4 -Pd
  

  For a list of anoncvs servers look here.

• To find where a package lives in the ports tree, use the following command:

  # make search key=programName
  

  Beats visual grepping all the port directories.

• To show available package flavors:

  # make show=FLAVORS
  

  To build a flavor:

  # env FLAVOR="flavorName" make install
  

Base System Source Code

• Unpack src.tgz and sys.tgz in the /usr/src. Do NOT unpack these archives in the /usr directory unless you want trouble.

• Apply patches from the top of the source tree - /usr/src using the following command:

  # patch -p0 < pathToPatch/001_patchname
  

  The instructions are fairly clear with regards what needs to happen after application of the patch. Don't skip any steps or bad shit will happen.

• Rebuild the kernel using the following commands:

  # cd /usr/src/sys/arch/i386/conf && config GENERIC && \
  cd ../compile/GENERIC && make depend bsd && mv /bsd /bsd.old && \
  cp bsd /
  

  I usually put this into an executable script in the /usr/src directory so that I can easily rebuild the kernel. You might want to install screen from ports before attempting to run this command on a Soekris 4801 or have the patience of a saint. If you've applied of patches in succession, you can issue a single rebuild instead of rebuilding per patch. That's just masochistic.