From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Jul 15 17:19:05 2011 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 A01EA1065675 for ; Fri, 15 Jul 2011 17:19:05 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from kraduk@gmail.com) Received: from mail-yw0-f54.google.com (mail-yw0-f54.google.com [209.85.213.54]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 601E38FC1D for ; Fri, 15 Jul 2011 17:19:05 +0000 (UTC) Received: by ywf7 with SMTP id 7so764292ywf.13 for ; Fri, 15 Jul 2011 10:19:04 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=mime-version:in-reply-to:references:date:message-id:subject:from:to :cc:content-type; bh=CxGFvJ2x5MCzy14g7BfEcDE7PLiwyV9J/cFhWSWM2eE=; b=FEZ7xXvBG0FNu2cHfqFPZ53aJrG7d4ArQFghmCqldVQcavWVOtP9MxtqqqbBoUVdts Pb1Gfnny8NSzpoCBPLkkdWrkIH8tbQL1PPItYiRgDsUXDVz3drVj5Ag4bKwsZYwGukPq p8JuUbBB7lozEneJZVg75K2E/ApG/3MEjEmxg= MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.236.170.7 with SMTP id o7mr5269169yhl.459.1310750344731; Fri, 15 Jul 2011 10:19:04 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.236.103.15 with HTTP; Fri, 15 Jul 2011 10:19:04 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <4E205BD7.7010903@InsightBB.com> References: <4E2042CD.7020409@infracaninophile.co.uk> <4E205BD7.7010903@InsightBB.com> Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2011 18:19:04 +0100 Message-ID: From: krad To: Steven Friedrich Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 X-Content-Filtered-By: Mailman/MimeDel 2.1.5 Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Upgrading very old installation 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, 15 Jul 2011 17:19:05 -0000 On 15 July 2011 16:25, Steven Friedrich wrote: > On 7/15/2011 9:38 AM, Matthew Seaman wrote: > >> On 15/07/2011 13:20, Jaime Kikpole wrote: >> >>> I'm running a FreeBSD 6.x server that hasn't been updated in about 1.5 >>> years. >>> >>> atlas:~>uname -mprs >>> FreeBSD 6.4-RELEASE-p8 i386 i386 >>> >>> What is the recommended way to upgrade it to something current? >>> Should I upgrade it to the most recent 6.x and then to 7.x and then to >>> 8.x? Or should I use a more direct route, upgrading it straight to >>> the 8-RELEASE branch? >>> >> You'll almost certainly find it quicker and less painful to just >> reinstall using an up to date version of FreeBSD. Personally, I'd go >> and buy a new hard drive for the machine, install the latest OS and >> applications on that and then copy over data etc. It helps if you can >> have both drives mounted in the same machine at once. >> >> There are variations on this theme -- for instance if your server has >> mirrored HDDs then you can split the mirror, re-install on one half, >> reconcile configurations, data, user accounts between the two halves >> and ultimately resynch the old drive to the new one. >> >> The big advantage of this sort of approach is that you get your new >> install up and running and tested before you need to commit to the >> potentially irreversible step of overwriting your last copy of the old >> one. >> >> Cheers, >> >> Matthew >> >> Excellent advice, Matt. You rock. > > ______________________________**_________________ > freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list > http://lists.freebsd.org/**mailman/listinfo/freebsd-**questions > To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-** > unsubscribe@freebsd.org " > You need to do your risk analysis to decide what route to take.The safe way is to do the 2nd drive method mentioned previously. If you decide to upgrade I would advise you to do the make world method. Its older and therefore more tested, and as you have said you are more familiar with it. I have done about 40+ upgrades from 6.x to 8.x. I did a step to 7 in the middle, and all worked fine. The only oddity I found was that when I went from 7.x to 8.x dangerously dedicated disks devices were presented differently. In 7.x you had ad0a, ad0b etc under /dev, but you also had ad0s1a, ad0s1b etc as well In 8.x you only had ones of the format ad0a. the oddity was the ad0s1a format ones being present prior to 8 being present, as I wouldn't have expected these. This was only and issue as whoever had built to box i inherited had used the ad0s1a format ones so on rebooting to 8.x we had issues. A quick edit of fstab fixed the issue though. Also make sure you have mergemaster configured proply as it will take a load of work out of the upgrades. Here is my rc for it. You may need to tune it a little cat /etc/mergemaster.rc AUTO_INSTALL=YES AUTO_UPGRADE=YES PRESERVE_FILES=yes PRESERVE_FILES_DIR=/var/mergemaster/preserved-files-`date +%y%m%d-%H%M%S` IGNORE_FILES="/etc/crontab /etc/fstab /etc/group /etc/hosts /etc/inetd.conf /etc/make.conf /etc/master.passwd /etc/motd /etc/newsyslog.conf /etc/ntp.conf /etc/ntp.drift /etc/profile /etc/rc.conf /etc/resolv.conf /etc/services /etc/shells /etc/syslog.conf /etc/ssh/sshd_config /etc/ssh/ssh_host_key /etc/ssh/ssh_host_key.pub /etc/ssh/ssh_host_rsa_key /etc/ssh/ssh_host_rsa_key.pub /etc/passwd /etc/rc.conf.local /etc/zfs/exports /etc//namedb/named.conf /etc/periodic.conf /etc/hosts.allow /etc/hosts /etc/pf.conf /etc/sysctl.conf /etc/make.conf /etc/src.conf /etc/mail/aliases /etc/mail/mailer.conf /etc/remote"