binary upgrade 6.1 - 7.2/8.0

[Matthew Seaman]

Alex de Kruijff wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 27, 2009 at 02:01:04PM +0000, Robin Becker wrote:
>> Is it feasible to upgrade a system from 6.1 to 7.2 or 8.0-RC1 and if yes 
>> what sequence of upgrades should I actually carry out ie is it feasible to 
>> do 6.1-6.2 and then 6.2 - 7.2 or should it be done in small steps?
> 
> I didn't see anyone else responed so I give it a go. I thougth it was
> posible for the base but not the ports. And I thought binairy upgrade
> only works from releses not patches or RCs. I haven't done this my self,
> but got this info from the handbook / the list.

Well, another user asked a very similar question about upgrading 6.x -> 8.0
in one go (using csup and buildworld).  In principle it should be possible to
upgrade from any OS version after about 5.4-RELEASE to the latest, but in
practice jumping too many versions all at once is painful.  As a rule of thumb,
updating within the same major version (6.1 -> 6.4) and upgrading to the
next major version (6.1 -> 7.0) should "just work".  In fact, upgrading from
the latest 6.x to the latest 7.x (6.4 -> 7.2) should just work too.  However,
there have been reports that going direct from 6.x to 8.0 is problematic,
and the solution is to do the upgrade in stages (6.1 -> 7.0 -> 8.0).

This is assuming you're upgrading by pulling down the sources using csup and
then building world. If you're using freebsd-upgrade, then in principle, you
should be able to upgrade to any supported version from any supported version.
'Supported versions' do not include release candidates, but they do include
security / errata patches, (so while 8.0-rc1 is not possible, 8.0-RELEASE-p1
certainly is.)  As 6.1 is now out of support that could well cause problems. 
I haven't tried doing anything like this with freebsd-upgrade so I can't give
a definitive answer, but if you choose to try it, I'd work under the expectation
that it won't go smoothly and put some forethought into how to extract yourself
from the gum-tree before you start climbing[*]

Don't dismiss the option of upgrading by re-installing.  Frequently it's the
fastest and least risky route.

Upgrading ports is something that should be considered as a separate task to be attended to after you've finished the base system upgrades: if you're upgrading
within a major version (6.1 -> 6.4) then you don't need to rebuild all your ports, 
just update the ones that are out of date in the usual way.  Updates across major
version boundaries are different.  Software installed under 6.x will still work on
8.0 so long as you either keep the 6.x shlibs around or you install the compat6x
port.  However, you should plan on re-installing all of your ports shortly after doing a major version upgrade otherwise your ports will become effectively 
unmaintainable.  This is the case whether you install binary packages or compile
the ports from source.

	Cheers,

	Matthew

[*] with or without your paddle.

-- 
Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil.                   7 Priory Courtyard
                                                  Flat 3
PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey     Ramsgate
                                                  Kent, CT11 9PW

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