From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Feb 27 05:33:33 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2957716A420 for ; Mon, 27 Feb 2006 05:33:33 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from illoai@gmail.com) Received: from xproxy.gmail.com (xproxy.gmail.com [66.249.82.204]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9895643D45 for ; Mon, 27 Feb 2006 05:33:32 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from illoai@gmail.com) Received: by xproxy.gmail.com with SMTP id s16so526716wxc for ; Sun, 26 Feb 2006 21:33:32 -0800 (PST) DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=beta; d=gmail.com; h=received:message-id:date:from:to:subject:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition:references; b=eUMMxhTFLCnzgCHz8FcEt+4m2fC6dZW/v83TOmOpkPaP253Yqtnnc6EERdKD1txtPrsO3uw8QJlsZ37VmW07w4M2aTfvc5Aa1RCKD2/lMFVMTYRH0akk1T4mu7Kn6ffbFY6wdcs2JIIstDH1qF9dibH3VBdoroSS3SI9B5dym54= Received: by 10.70.46.11 with SMTP id t11mr3208770wxt; Sun, 26 Feb 2006 21:33:27 -0800 (PST) Received: by 10.70.58.15 with HTTP; Sun, 26 Feb 2006 21:33:27 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: Date: Sun, 26 Feb 2006 23:33:27 -0600 From: "illoai@gmail.com" To: "pobox@verysmall.org" , freebsd-questions@freebsd.org In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Disposition: inline References: <4401F701.10202@verysmall.org> Cc: Subject: Re: advice on upgrading production FreeBSD 5.4 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: Mon, 27 Feb 2006 05:33:33 -0000 On 2/26/06, Andrew Pantyukhin wrote: > On 2/26/06, pobox@verysmall.org wrote: > > I inherited a production FreeBSD 5.4 used as a web/mail server (Apache, > > PostgreSQL, php, qmail, vpopmail, Courier). Could anybody help me with > > information about a web resource on upgrading such system (all, OS only > > or component by component) with minimum downtime. I looked into cvsup > > and portupgrade - is this the right way for production systems or is > > there another one? For example is it possible to have the older version > > running until the new one downloads/compiles and then to replace it > > within seconds? Also - what if the new version does not work correctly = - > > is it possible to keep the old and revert to it. > > First, you'd better upgrade to 6.1. Read /usr/src/UPDATING > and handbook for that. > I'm not sure if I had a working machine that was up on its security patches that I would upgrade, where admittedly 5.4 to 6.x is not a huge jump (compared to 4 -> 5 or even 3 -> 4). Assuming all goes well your down- time should be the time it takes the server to reboot, but if (very big) your buildworld has some hidden fault (personal experience when /bin/sh would dump core on every invocation, very difficult to fix) you could be looking at a couple of days of downtime. Whereas I believe that the 6.x series is much better than 5.x, I'm not convinced that the risk/reward payoff is that great, doubly so given that it's a production machine. 5.4, while obsolete from a numerical standpoint, will be useable for a long while: years, probably. If the hardware itself is nothing special, or replaceable for less than the cost of downtime, you might look into putting up a second server running the new software, test carefully for a week or so, and then gracefully transition. All of this is speculation. As a postscript: the tales of 5.x to 6.x upgrades have been for the most part very painless, but in production systems conservatism leads to happy customers. -- --