Upgrading a remote box from 5.3 to 6-stable....

[Philip Hallstrom]

Hi all -

I recently got a leased server that's running 5.3.  It's in Texas.  I'm in 
Washington.  I want to upgrade it to 6-STABLE.  In the update docs it says 
that "when doing a major release upgrade, it is required that you boot 
into single user mode to do the installworld."

Which obviously is a problem.  And I find it hard to believe it's really 
necessary as this is going to be an issue for a lot of people.  Is this 
similar to the old recommendation of doing this "unless your system is 
relatively quiet"?

I also read about needing to build a kernel with COMPAT_FREEBSD5 in order for 
the new kernel to boot and be able to installworld.

Anything else?  And anyone know if the boot into single user mode is really 
necessary?

Can't really test it on my remote box....

Thanks!

-philip