Upgrading FreeBSD to a new release

[JJB]

The source upgrade is not the problem, it's when on those rare times
that system configuration file statements are added or changed that
requiring mergemaster to run. There is no way around that condition
when that happens. The 5.1 to 5.2 case is special just because 5.x
is development branch. You would not see this in stable branch
upgrades.

Now I think I read about an case where an person had two remote
headless systems and he set each one up with an serial console to
the other system. So he could have ssh session to box A which had
serial console connection to box B that he then could put box B into
single user mode to do mergemaster and return back to multi user
mode. Then he would use ssh session to box B who had serial console
connection to box A and do same thing to box A.

So there is an way around your remote problem as long as you have
two boxes at same remote location.

You know the real simple solution is to do your upgrade to local box
and remove hard disk and ship it to remote location and have short
downtime while hard drives are swapped. All ways have an single IDE
drive just for your operation system separate from your data drives.


-----Original Message-----
From: owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
[mailto:owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org]On Behalf Of Kent
Stewart
Sent: Sunday, June 06, 2004 5:49 PM
To: freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
Cc: Remko Lodder; Roman Kennke
Subject: Re: Upgrading FreeBSD to a new release

On Sunday 06 June 2004 02:44 pm, Remko Lodder wrote:
> Hey Roman,
>
> Roman Kennke wrote:
> > Hi list,
> >
> > One thing, that is making me _not_ using FreeBSD is, that I see
no
> > way to easily upgrade from, say 5.1 to 5.2 (just an example),
over
> > network. I mean, I have a server running, to which I have no
> > physical access. The only way to maintain it, is over SSH.
> > The upgrade instructions in INSTALL.txt suggest putting in the
CD,
> > and using sysinstall for a binary upgrade. That is no option for
> > me.
> >
> > What I am looking for is an upgrade method which
> > - can be used over an SSH connection
> > - is not too difficult (like manually placing each piece in the
> > right place)
> > - does not leave old stuff on the HD (like the sysinstall method
> > does, AFAIK)
> >
> > ... to make it short, something like the ports system
(especially
> > portupgrade) does with non-system apps would be cool.
>
> I use CVSup to update my system and then rebuild as described in
the
> /usr/src/Makefile file, (yeah yeah there is a UPDATING file on
should
> follow), the only thing that i am not doing, since i dont have
> physical access as well, is boot into single user mode and run
> mergemaster, mostly i am keen of knowing what changes , so far on
my
> 5.x servers there weren't any issue's requiring mergemaster to
run.
>
> Apart from that i updated my systems many times, without being in
> single user mode, with an ssh connection.

This doesn't work on the upgrade to 5.2 from 5.1. You have to boot
into
single user mode to do the installworld. You have incompatible
features
at this upgrade.

Kent

>
> Hope this helps a bit..
>
> ow yeah
>
> /usr/ports/net/cvsup-without-gui is where the cvsup lives :)
>
> Cheers
>
> > Is there a way to achieve that? This would be the one bit, which
> > would make me switch to FreeBSD.
> >
> > /Roman

--
Kent Stewart
Richland, WA

http://users.owt.com/kstewart/index.html
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