Run existing FreeBSD installation inside jail

[Hr. Daniel Mikkelsen]

Mikhail Vladimirov wrote:

> I want to try the following trick:
> 
> 1. Install FreeBSD 6.x-STABLE on the separate HDD, while it is inside
> my home PC.
> 2. Place this HDD into server, make it bootable.
> 3. Boot new system, and mount old HDD (with FreeBSD 4.x and all old
> stuff)
> 4. Setup jail inside new system, which will run old system.
> 5. Now I have all services running, and I can transfer it to new
> system one by one quietly.
> 
> I believe, that FreeBSD is backward compatible, and all my stuff,
> which successfully run on 4.x sill run inside jail on 6.x.  I am
> right?  Did anybody tried to do something like this?  What was the
> results?

Hi.

It might work well enough for your services to run, depending on what
they are.

I'd insert two new steps in between 3 and 4:

3b: Tar down a copy of the old system.
3c: Upgrade the old system in place (mergemaster, installworld, etc.) to
the same version your new system is running.

This is usually straight forward.

-- 
Daniel Mikkelsen
Copyleft Software AS