Upgrading 4.11-STABLE to 5.4-STABLE

[Steve Bertrand]

> > Oddly enough, and a little OT, (but semi-within the topic) 
> I'm trying 
> > to update a 5.0 box to RELENG_5 right now with several different 
> > errors, too many to mention (generally they occur after rebooting 
> > after my installkernel. I can subsequently reboot off of 
> kernel.old, as always).
> 
> That's not surprising, if your kernel and userland are too 
> far out of sync, lots of things won't work right like ps and 
> ipfw and so forth.  If the kernel boots OK into single-user 
> mode, it should be OK to do the installworld.

Hmmm, interesting point. I didn't even think of that. However, if I do
that successfully, then reboot the system and it fails, there is no way
to 'undo' the installworld...right? Either way, I'm going to try it, so
I can use that experience for when I have to do a production box.

> Anyway, you really don't want to stay with 5.0, even if it 
> takes a reinstall from a 5.4 CD to get there....  :-)

Eventually, if all else fails, I will.

> Take full backups before you do anything.  The thing is, 
> there is nothing wrong with a 4.11 system, either, especially 
> if it is a uni-processor machine.  For SMP hardware, I'd be 
> tempted to jump directly to 6.0 or wait for 6.1, rather than 
> move to the middle/end of the 5.x releases.

The Samba box is a SMP unit, but the 4.11 is a uni-proc box. I've been
running it that way since 4.5, moving the system to new disks a few
times, and periodically more powerful boxes. I have really no reason to
upgrade this one to 5 or 6 at this point...and BTW, I always do backups.
System is on a RAID-1, with a second RAID-1 setup that gets a mirrored
copy of the primary RAID every day. Further that, I have it taped up
too. Call me paranoid, but having the backup RAID ensures that I can
just move it to new hardware and continue right on trucking.

> Keeping your ports up-to-date is a bigger concern, but things 
> like portaudit and the people working on submitting both 
> security warnings and patches to the ports help...

Indeed. I just got familiar with portaudit a few weeks ago, and I find
it quite handy.

Tks for your input.

Steve