From owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Feb 13 05:58:04 2009 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6AAE3106566C for ; Fri, 13 Feb 2009 05:58:04 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from bakul@bitblocks.com) Received: from mail.bitblocks.com (mail.bitblocks.com [64.142.15.60]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 470C08FC17 for ; Fri, 13 Feb 2009 05:58:04 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from bakul@bitblocks.com) Received: from bitblocks.com (localhost.bitblocks.com [127.0.0.1]) by mail.bitblocks.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1D4825B37; Thu, 12 Feb 2009 21:40:58 -0800 (PST) To: Karl Denninger In-reply-to: Your message of "Thu, 12 Feb 2009 21:01:38 CST." <4994E292.4000802@denninger.net> References: <4994CD7B.7040302@denninger.net> <4994D603.2060406@delphij.net> <4994D931.4060508@denninger.net> <4994DACC.1040801@delphij.net> <4994DBC1.2000309@denninger.net> <4994DFB0.3060704@delphij.net> <4994E292.4000802@denninger.net> Comments: In-reply-to Karl Denninger message dated "Thu, 12 Feb 2009 21:01:38 -0600." Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2009 21:40:58 -0800 From: Bakul Shah Message-Id: <20090213054059.1D4825B37@mail.bitblocks.com> Cc: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Upgrade from 32-bit to AMD-64? X-BeenThere: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Production branch of FreeBSD source code List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2009 05:58:04 -0000 On Thu, 12 Feb 2009 21:01:38 CST Karl Denninger wrote: > >> I guess I need to schedule the 2-3 hours of downtime..... the reason for > >> this, by the way, is that I have a dbms app on there that is getting too > >> RAM hungry for its own good (its a Quadcore CPU) and I'm up against the > >> RAM limit for 32-bit code. The board will support more but 32-bit code > >> won't; ergo, the only way to get beyond this is to go to 64-bit. > >> > > > > Oh wait! One thing you wanted to know is that, some database *can* have > > different on-disk format for 32-bit and 64-bit binaries. Be sure to > > have a dump handy. Last time I hit this on a MySQL "upgrade" between > > two servers, and I end up using its replication functionality. The > > operation took longer time than I expected at the beginning. > > > > My personal suggestion is that you do an experiment on another box > > (64-bit capable) to make sure that the data would work, this never hurts > > and avoids surprises (you do want 64-bit compile of your database > > application since you want to take full advantage of 64-bit OS); also, > > just like all upgrades, full backup is advised. > > > > Cheers, > > - -- > > Xin LI http://www.delphij.net > I already know I have to dump the database and then reload it - I > attempted to migrate the disk structure across (which would have saved > even more time) and got instantaneously hosed, presumably due to > internal data type length differences. > > This little upgrade is going to take a while; sounds like the best > approach is to load a new box, shut down the dbms to connections and > dump/pipe it over, then physically swap the machines. May be you can install the 64 bit world from an install CD to a 2 to 4GB USB flash drive, reboot to the 64 bit kernel & set root on the flash drive, mount your original filesystems under /mnt, make and install with DESTDIR=/mnt, mergemaster -D /mnt and reboot?