Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2025 00:18:18 -0600 From: Scott Bennett <bennett@sdf.org> To: paul@gromit.dlib.vt.edu Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: 14.2-RELEASE buildworld failure Message-ID: <202501260618.50Q6IIwS026754@sdf.org> In-Reply-To: <699C8E54-3A32-4EC3-A997-0CF246B00A8C@gromit.dlib.vt.edu> References: <202501240806.50O86h91025926@sdf.org> <CAAdA2WPPSQGcZ7EbDDeyw%2BYhjNsrnfs%2BAKFT4d=ZkZR4a1bMLw@mail.gmail.com> <202501240948.50O9m1gR027409@sdf.org> <699C8E54-3A32-4EC3-A997-0CF246B00A8C@gromit.dlib.vt.edu>
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Paul Mather <paul@gromit.dlib.vt.edu> wrote: > On Jan 24, 2025, at 4:48?am, Scott Bennett <bennett@sdf.org> wrote: > > >> Odhiambo Washington <odhiambo@gmail.com> wrote: > >>> So you can start with: > >> 1. > >> https://www.cyberciti.biz/open-source/freebsd-13-released-how-to-update-upgrade-freebsd-12-to-13/, > >> then proceed to > >> 2. https://www.debugpoint.com/upgrade-to-freebsd-14/ > > > > Thanks for the URLs, which I will probably take a look at for ideas, but > > an upgrade to 13.x is, as stated above, something I hope to avoid even as a > > temporary measure for fear of getting stuck at that stage and being left with > > no option but installing from scratch, which would cost me all of my > > configuration choices and probably leave me with an unusable system. That is > > what happened on the laptop when I "upgraded" to 13.3-RELEASE. I do try to > > learn from encounters with pitfalls. FWIW, 13.x has no new features that I > > have any need of, while 14.x may. In any case, I can't remain on 12.4, even > > though it has been a very reliable release. > > > I believe the guaranteed tested upgrade path is from FreeBSD X to FreeBSD X+1. It may work to jump over an interim release, but given your issues up to now, you may have hit the corner case where going from 12.4 -> 14.2 won't work and you have to upgrade via 13. Conceivably so, but I don't think there is yet sufficient reason to believe that to be the case. I still haven't seen any comments about the actual error messsages I got from the buildworld. > > If you are worried about getting stuck on 13.x, and you are using ZFS, have you tried upgrading via boot environments? I have upgraded via beinstall.sh(8) for a while now and have been very happy with it. (I use it in my standard update workflow.) After you run buildworld and buildkernel as normal, you run beinstall.sh (which lives in /usr/src/tools/build) to install to a new boot environment, which is also enabled on reboot. You can reboot into the new system just by rebooting. If it fails, you can select the previous working boot environment to boot into your previous working system. That is a very long line of text. Are you using a Micro$lop machine to run your mail interface? Yes, I use boot environments. They were the final thing that pushed me to switch to a root filesystem on ZFS. I recall wading through the beinstall.sh script and seeing no reason to use it over the way I was already doing things, and it would be that much less transparent in the event of an error. > > So long as you don't upgrade your pool at the 13.x stage you should be able to revert back to your existing 12.4 system by reactivating that boot environment. If upgrading to 13.x works, you can repeat the process in the 13.x boot environment to upgrade to 14.x. When you're happily at 14.x, you can delete the interim 13.x boot environment. The procedure laid out in the Handbook but with minor additions for dealing with boot environments is what I do. That involves *trying out* the new kernel *before* running "make installworld". Backing out at that stage by booting from the old release's boot environment works fine then, but is impossible after running "make installworld" unless one has *also* snapshots every other file system altered by the installworld process before running "make installworld" and then rolls back to those snapshots. This is especially the case when upgrading across major release boundaries. Recall that the KPI is "guaranteed" not to change between minor releases of a single major release, although FreeBSD has sometimes been unfaithful to that principle, but that no such "guarantee" is made regarding KPI changes between major releases. I rarely have upgraded my pools after installing a new OS until at least a week or two of successful operation has ensued. Well, I'm no closer to understanding why 14.2-RELEASE's "buildworld" fails on my 12.4-RELEASE-p2 system. If someone can explain to me what is going wrong with it, the explanation would be greatly appreciated. If someone can further tell me what I need to change to make it work, that would also be so appreciated. If the only way forward is through 13.1-RELEASE, then I guess I'll have to try it and hope for the best, but I have already seen the disaster that resulted from trying to upgrade from 13.2-RELEASE to 13.3-RELEASE, so that is clearly not a way forward to 14.2-RELEASE. Also, at present that laptop is only barely usable for a few limited things after I had to install 13.3-RELEASE from the .img file from the freebsd.org server because it can't find the pkg(8) repository. It may be enough to save the tower if an upgrade attempt on it results in another boot failure like happened after an earlier attempt to upgrade did a few months ago, but I really hope I don't have to deal with another situation like that. In any case, I don't want to bet that it would bail me out again. Scott Bennett, Comm. ASMELG, CFIAG ********************************************************************** * Internet: bennett at sdf.org *xor* bennett at freeshell.org * *--------------------------------------------------------------------* * "A well regulated and disciplined militia, is at all times a good * * objection to the introduction of that bane of all free governments * * -- a standing army." * * -- Gov. John Hancock, New York Journal, 28 January 1790 * **********************************************************************
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