From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Sun Jan 31 04:10:21 2010 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3EF2E106566B for ; Sun, 31 Jan 2010 04:10:21 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from skeezix@skeleton.org) Received: from mail1.dm.egate.net (mail1.dm.egate.net [216.235.1.135]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C01A48FC12 for ; Sun, 31 Jan 2010 04:10:20 +0000 (UTC) Received: from fw.skeleton.org (h216-235-8-78.host.egate.net [216.235.8.78]) by mail1.dm.egate.net (8.13.8/8.13.8) with ESMTP id o0V41JUr093142 for ; Sat, 30 Jan 2010 23:01:19 -0500 (EST) Received: from fw.skeleton.org (fw.skeleton.org [127.0.0.1]) by fw.skeleton.org (8.13.3/8.13.3) with ESMTP id o0V4867e036968 for ; Sat, 30 Jan 2010 23:08:06 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from skeezix@skeleton.org) Received: from localhost (skeezix@localhost) by fw.skeleton.org (8.13.3/8.13.3/Submit) with ESMTP id o0V485lp036965 for ; Sat, 30 Jan 2010 23:08:06 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from skeezix@skeleton.org) X-Authentication-Warning: fw.skeleton.org: skeezix owned process doing -bs Date: Sat, 30 Jan 2010 23:08:05 -0500 (EST) From: Jeff Mitchell To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Message-ID: <20100130225014.C36480@fw.skeleton.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed Subject: Help! Upgrade from fbsd 5.4 to 8.x X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 31 Jan 2010 04:10:21 -0000 Hello my friends, I've just noticed one of my beloved headless shell boxen is FreeBSD 5.4; its a workhorse I've been neglecting far too long and I'd really like to bring it up to 'current' (say fbsd 8.x). For awhile it was held back by very specific applications I had to support, but I'm in the clear now. Given the age of the installation, I'm wondering what the recommended upgrade path would be. ie: This machine has a lot going on .. wiki's (ie: apache et al), mysql databases, mailing lists, and a dozen hand rolled applications. (Hey, someone has to write custom emulators of ancient systems to keep BBSes alive, right?) Naturally, /etc is modified all to hell, and I'm terrified of any automated upgrades for fear random things would just not work later. Especially with the age... Things work great, but I worry about security naturally, and keeping up with patches or installing anything new is a nightmare due to dependancies. o I should be able to identify most important changes and data; /etc, /home, the kernel build path so I've got the old kernel conf files I used for this machine (yay!), /usr/local was used instead of polluting /usr-proper, etc. o I'd love if I coudl do an upgrade, and things would still work; I mean, from samba configuration etc and so on, eveyrthign is great. I realize this is unlikely though .. upgrading services likely means conf changes all over the random place, etc. o Some of the executables on this box are without source but I still need them to run; short of moving them to a VM and doing some voodoo, what are the chances a binary built for fbsd 5.x works fine in 8.x? (earlier fbsd's had the break between gcc versions, but I'm rather hoping thats not a problem here.) gcc (GCC) 3.4.2 [FreeBSD] 20040728 The obvious options are.. 1 - upgrade step by step; go from fbsd 5.4 to 6.4 (say) to 7.2 (say) to 8.0 2 - one big-ass upgrade from 5.4 to 8 (*fear*) 3 - yank the drive, slap a giant new fat drive in there, do a full fbsd 8.0 install, and then migration from old drive as needed Strikes me most people will recommend (3) -- nice big new drive, no risk of destroying a working machine (can always slap old drive back in), easy migration of service by service, etc and so on. Strikes me as a PITA, but then again .. the others are probably all PITAs as well given the age of the box. Something will break, so maybe its best to just start fresh with a nice new install and go from there. *ugh* but that'll teach me to stay on top of it more :) Aside -- whats the recommended way to stay on top of upgrades anyway? It used to be a tortuous process back 5 years ago, but hopefully things are much more streamlined now .. nightly 'make upgrade' ftw :) jeff -- If everyone would put barbecue sauce on their food, there would be no war.