Botched 7->8 upgrade, thoughts how to recover?

[Joshua Isom]

On 4/25/2013 3:35 PM, Tuc wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Figured this might be a bit more than -questions worthy...
>
> I was following some instructions online about upgrading 7 to 8...
> And... Well... Something went horribly wrong during "make installworld".
> I lost my ssh session (Mistake 1 - Console dummy!) and now in multiuser
> I can't log in. I logged in single user and commands are iffy about
> working. "ls" is fine, but "ls -l" coredumps. I tried to redo the
> installworld, but it seems to get somewhere in libc man pages and then
> quits. Could be that "ln" is screwed.
>
> Any thoughts on how to recover? I did an rsync of the system elsewhere
> beforehand, so if it works I probably could just get it all back that
> way. I was HOPING to go forward to 8. Is there some way I can do the
> equiv of a "make installworld&&make installkernel" off some media so I
> don't overwrite config, password, group, etc.
>
> Thanks, Tuc

Try logging in and rebuilding world.  First set your path to include 
/rescue before /bin.  You can rebuild in single user mode without a 
problem, probably.  When you install, don't use -j.  If it fails, just 
document where it fails and post back.  If you have another FreeBSD 
system available, you can use a flash drive to install to and from, just 
set MAKEOBJDIRPREFIX to the mount location.  Don't forget the final 
mergemaster.

Also, did you remember `mergemaster -p` beforehand?