Proper way to upgrade OpenSSH on FreeBSD 4.9

[Jason Williams]

Good morning everyone.

I just had a couple of questions about upgrading OpenSSH on a FreeBSD 4.9 box.
Being that 4.9 ships with:

OpenSSH_3.5p1 FreeBSD-20030924, SSH protocols 1.5/2.0, OpenSSL 0x0090703f

I wanted to upgrade my version of OpenSSH to a more recent version.

My question is, what is the proper method in doing so?

I see that, currently in the ports tree, openssh 3.7.1p2 is available for 
install.
There is also the possibility of installing from source.

I would think that using the ports tree may be a very good option, as you 
can upgrade later with portupgrade.

With that in mind, what is the best method in doing this?
If I decided to use the ports tree to upgrade my openssh, do I need to do 
anything before hand? Backup? Save etc...(I should mention, im testing this 
on a test system first).

I appreciate the input and advice anyone lends.

Cheers,

Jason