Upgrading to 4.9 CVS vs. binary?

[Matthew Seaman]

On Tue, Sep 23, 2003 at 10:26:54AM -0700, Scott Schappell wrote:
> It seems that 4.9 is rapidly on its way to becoming RELEASE, which is a good
> thing.  I'm currently running 4.8-p3 on my production server, and I don't
> have a spare to build then move over, so it will be an in place upgrade.
> 
> Which upgrade path would be the best? CVS or installing from a binary ISO
> CD?
> 
> If CVS, I'm assuming I need to add *default  tag=RELENG_4_9  when it's
> released to my cvsup file to grab it, or do I need to start tracking
> stable RELENG_4?
> 
> My hunch is CVS will be the better way to do it, and the last time I tried
> upgrading the system with a binary, it exploded (learned then don't do a
> binary upgrade when it's running the kernel and multiuser, thank god for
> backups).
> 
> What is the recommendation of folks on this list?

To go from RELENG_4_8 to RELENG_4_9, probably the simplest and least
hassleful method is to cvsup the RELENG_4_9 sources, and then do a
normal {build,install}{world,kernel} job.  There's not much point in
your tracking RELENG_4, unless you want to practice at upgrading.

This *should* be a pretty painless upgrade but hearing the words
"upgrade production server" always makes me nervous.  If this server
is earning you or your company money and having it go down for any
length of time is very bad karma, and as you say, you don't have any
spare hardware to play with then:

     a) make sure you have good backups

     b) follow the instructions in
     http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/makeworld.html
     carefully -- especially the parts about rebooting into single
     user mode to test your new kernel -- for a remote machine that
     means you will need remote console access

     and

     c) consider sticking with RELENG_4_8 -- unless there's added
     support for some necessary bit of hardware or some enhanced
     system behaviour that you need or some other really good reason
     to upgrade, *leaving the server be* will certainly enhance it's
     stability.  4.8-RELEASE will be officially supported for at least
     another 4 months, and will probably receive critical security
     fixes for much longer than that.

	Cheers,

	Matthew

-- 
Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil.                       26 The Paddocks
                                                      Savill Way
PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey         Marlow
Tel: +44 1628 476614                                  Bucks., SL7 1TH UK
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 187 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-questions/attachments/20030923/0373f5c3/attachment.bin