Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2001 16:16:59 -0700 From: James Guse <guse1@llnl.gov> To: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Upgrading a system Message-ID: <5.0.0.25.2.20010417155903.04e4feb0@popcorn.llnl.gov>
next in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
I'm a little confused about the recommended way to upgrade a FreeBSD system. I want to avoid anything to do with sources/CVS, etc; I'm looking for straightforward upgrades of bastion, production systems. I've found the following incomplete information: FAQ 1.31 says: Use "binary snapshots" of -STABLE. (Ok, I understand how to install a new system from the snapshots, but upgrading?) 4.2-...-STABLE UPGRADE.TXT says: These notes assume that you are using the version of sysinstall supplied with the version of FreeBSD to which you intend to upgrade. Using a mismatched version of sysinstall is almost guaranteed to cause problems and has been known to leave systems in an unusable state. The most commonly made mistake in this regard is the use of an old copy of /stand/sysinstall from an existing installation to upgrade to a newer version of FreeBSD. This is NOT recommended. (Ok, so how to I get the correct /stand/sysinstall for the version I want to upgrade to before I upgrade the system? Does /stand come in the 'bin' distribution?) So I took a chance and upgraded a 4.2-RELEASE system to 4.2-20010411-STABLE. Everything worked fine except for a kernel naming problem: UPGRADE.TXT says that the kernel will be replaced with a generic kernel. Fine, but it doesn't say that you have to 'mv kernel.GENERIC kernel' so that /boot/defaults/loader.conf will actually boot the system. Once it was all done, it appeared that nothing in /stand was updated. Further, when I copied the contents of /stand (actually a nest of hard links) to another system to perform the upgrade, it seemed to think it was the version that that other system was installed as. So, unless I've just missed an obvious pointer to the simple explanation of how to do an upgrade, perhaps this is a good item for the FAQ. Jimmy To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?5.0.0.25.2.20010417155903.04e4feb0>