Is there a guide to Upgrading a FreeBSD server remotely

[Peter Ulrich Kruppa]

On Wed, 3 Dec 2003, Alex de Kruijff wrote:

> 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.
That is the really important thing: there shouldn't be any other
traffic on the system.
Do everything step by step and keep a logfile to check if
everything worked o.k. . Do something like
# make buildworld > logfile &
In case your connection breaks, buildworld will go on and you can
check everything when it is up again. With
# tail -f logfile
you can check the advance anytime you whish.

Uli.


> --
> Alex
>
> Articles based on solutions that I use:
> http://www.kruijff.org/alex/index.php?dir=docs/FreeBSD/
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	+---------------------------+
	|    Peter Ulrich Kruppa    |
        |         Wuppertal         |
        |          Germany          |
        +---------------------------+