From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Nov 2 19:10:28 2007 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 B867E16A417 for ; Fri, 2 Nov 2007 19:10:28 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from josh@tcbug.org) Received: from cenn-smtp.mc.mpls.visi.com (cenn.mc.mpls.visi.com [208.42.156.9]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 86A4E13C491 for ; Fri, 2 Nov 2007 19:10:27 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from josh@tcbug.org) Received: from mail.tcbug.org (mail.tcbug.org [208.42.70.163]) by cenn-smtp.mc.mpls.visi.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id A51548703; Fri, 2 Nov 2007 07:51:25 -0500 (CDT) Received: from build64.tcbug.org (unknown [208.42.70.167]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by mail.tcbug.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 86ED310AA88D; Fri, 2 Nov 2007 07:51:18 -0500 (CDT) From: Josh Paetzel To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Date: Fri, 2 Nov 2007 07:51:20 -0500 User-Agent: KMail/1.9.7 References: <85bdae4e0711011137m930c7e4w9ce5920b5d61f7f7@mail.gmail.com> <472ACA9A.2090903@cederstrand.dk> In-Reply-To: <472ACA9A.2090903@cederstrand.dk> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; boundary="nextPart2267098.ZCt8WDVckK"; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; micalg=pgp-sha1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-Id: <200711020751.24469.josh@tcbug.org> Cc: David Yeske , Erik Cederstrand Subject: Re: remote binary upgrade from 4.10 to 6.2 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: Fri, 02 Nov 2007 19:10:28 -0000 --nextPart2267098.ZCt8WDVckK Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Disposition: inline On Friday 02 November 2007 01:58:34 am Erik Cederstrand wrote: > David Yeske wrote: > > I have a lot of appliances in the field running FreeBSD. These > > machines do not have a working compiler. They need to be upgraded > > from FreeBSD 4.10 to FreeBSD 6.2. Has anyone gone through this > > successfully? Does anyone have pointers on a clean way to do this? > > Due to the lack of console support for most of these machines, booting > > from the 6.2 cd will not work. This has to be a remote binary > > upgrade. I need to have FreeBSD 4.10 install FreeBSD 6.2, although > > this could be done in stages with multiple reboots. I want to avoid > > upgrading from FreeBSD 4.10 to 5.5 to 6.2. It appears that FreeBSD > > 6.2 runs just fine on UFS1. > > First, I should mention that I have not done something like this before. > However, I think it would help if you could be a little more specific. > What are the specs of the machine (CPU, RAM, disk)? How remote are they > (i.e. "next building" or "Greenland")? How many appliances need > upgrading? Do you control the network they're attached to? > > A couple of ideas: > 1) As you say, the official advice is 4.10 -> 5.5 -> 6.2. You could > cross-compile the 5.5 world + kernel on a build machine and > installworld/kernel on the appliance. Reboot, and repeat for 6.2. This > assumes you have the disk space for the new world/kernel, or that you > can at least NFS mount a remote /usr/obj. > > 2) If you have the disk space, you can create another partition, place a > complete 6.2 distribution there (compiled on a build machine) and change > the boot loader to boot the new partition. > > 3) If you are able to PXE boot the machine, you could do a network > install of the appliance. > > 4) If you control the network, you could build a kernel with NFS_ROOT > support so you're independent on the local disk. Wipe the disk and > install a new distribution there. > > 5) Finally, if you have the RAM, you could build a kernel with MFS_ROOT > support, place a memdisk image on the local disk and proceed as 4) > > Erik Just in case there is any doubt, a remote upgrade from source is more invol= ved=20 than 4.10 -> 5.5 -> 6.2 The supported upgrade path across major version numbers has always been fro= m=20 the last release of the old to the first release of the new, and in the 5.x= =20 era there wasn't a direct upgrade path from 5.0 -> 5.5, you needed to do=20 5.0 -> 5.3 -> 5.5 so your upgrade path from source really is.... 4.10 -> 4.11 -> 5.0 -> 5.3 -> 5.5 -> 6.0 -> 6.2 There may be cases where you can skip a step, but then you venture in to th= e=20 land of unsupported upgrades. I'm not suggesting you go this route, just giving you more motivation to=20 explore other options! =2D-=20 Thanks, Josh Paetzel PGP: 8A48 EF36 5E9F 4EDA 5A8C 11B4 26F9 01F1 27AF AECB --nextPart2267098.ZCt8WDVckK Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name=signature.asc Content-Description: This is a digitally signed message part. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.4 (FreeBSD) iD8DBQBHKx1MJvkB8SevrssRArf0AJoC8HzCLp0lPVGpcgyW0hHoQd6SegCgi6zO rxNGyPQayXNILsPQo9WbpAo= =LUoE -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --nextPart2267098.ZCt8WDVckK--