Is there a guide to Upgrading a FreeBSD server remotely

[Alex de Kruijff]

On Tue, Dec 02, 2003 at 03:01:36AM +0100, Denis Fortin wrote:
> 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?)
> 
Although its not recommended to do this, it can be done. It basicaly
comes down to following the manual (without rebooting into single
usermode) and be very very carefull. Read everything you need to read,
run every command you need to run and have someone sitting there in case
it goes wrong.

Note: I've never done this on a busy system.
-- 
Alex

Articles based on solutions that I use:
http://www.kruijff.org/alex/index.php?dir=docs/FreeBSD/