From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Dec 1 17:59:39 2003 Return-Path: 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 8F4C916A4CE for ; Mon, 1 Dec 2003 17:59:39 -0800 (PST) Received: from smtp.noos.fr (nan-smtp-14.noos.net [212.198.2.122]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3678943FB1 for ; Mon, 1 Dec 2003 17:59:38 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from fortin@acm.org) Received: (qmail 2723 invoked by uid 0); 2 Dec 2003 01:59:37 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO acm.org) ([81.64.60.140]) (envelope-sender ) by 212.198.2.122 (qmail-ldap-1.03) with SMTP for ; 2 Dec 2003 01:59:37 -0000 Message-ID: <3FCBF280.9060108@acm.org> Date: Tue, 02 Dec 2003 03:01:36 +0100 From: Denis Fortin User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.5b) Gecko/20030723 Thunderbird/0.1 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: Is there a guide to Upgrading a FreeBSD server remotely X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 02 Dec 2003 01:59:39 -0000 Greetings, I've Google'd a bit, but I cannot find a "survival guide to upgrading a FreeBSD system remotely". The Handbook's procedure is excellent (cvsup to the RELENG branch and then make'ing world), but it requires going into single user mode and using the console, two things which may not be possible in the context of a server sitting unattended in a hosting center 10000 kilometers away. Has anyone written a quick guide on issues that can arise in this kind of situation? (For instance, one the the issues is that one might end up with a bad kernel: have people devised a way for the boot code to interact with "reboot -k xxx" to revert to the default kernel after an unsucessful boot, or after a specific time?) Thanks Denis Fortin, fortin@acm.org