FreeBSD upgrade on production server

[Alex de Kruijff]

On Sun, Sep 07, 2003 at 05:48:42PM +0200, SUPPORT wrote:
> > Hello everybody,
> > 
> > I wish to upgrade my production firewall / mailserver / DNS server from
> > 4.3 to 4.8. The simplest way seems to be use of CVSUP. OK, but...
> > 
> > Is it safe ? What should I backup ? There is running well-configured
> > sendmail - are there some changes in its configuration between
> > versions 8.11.3 used in FreeBSD 4.3 and 8.12.8p1 used in
> > FreeBSD 4.8.
> > This is my only mailserver and I don't have an secondary
> > if something fails...
> > 
> > Please, advice if you have some know-how :-)))
> > 
> > Peter Rosa
> 
> P.S. Sorry for duplicate mail, I'm not sure it is sending it to the list.
> 
I only saw one, so i guess you only send it one time to the list.

Is it safe? Yes, but there's always a chance that something goes wrong.
If you can't take any change then don't update. You don't have a
secondary procution server, but do you have a secondary computer? If so
use this a test server. (Go for the most identical one) Install 4.3 on
this one and then update this one, using the same source. Also set it up
to sepport the most critical functions. This not only gives you the
change to gain some experinace but also let you test it. You won't
upgrade the production computer if this fails.

( On later version (4.6 or 4.7) you could let your production computer
compile the source and use its /usr/src/ and /usr/obj/ through nfs. )

You wan't to backup /etc/ /usr/local/etc/ and you data.

-- 
Alex

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