freebsd-update: fale?

[Fbsd8]

Joe Altman wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 03, 2013 at 03:50:44PM +0100, Martin Laabs wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> On 01/02/13 01:21, Joe Altman wrote:
>>> Greetings, list. I have the following error; though I can load
>>> update5.FreeBSD.org in a browser:
>>> [...]
>> maybe you use a release that is not supported by freebsd-update. Run
>> "uname -r" an compare the release with that you see when looking at
>> http://update4.freebsd.org/
>>
>> If it is not there you can not use freebsd-update.
> 
> Yes; I realized that after I revisited the man page and handbook;
> somehow I managed to miss that initially. I'm currently using
> 9.1-PRERELEASE.
> 
> 
> Now I am left to wonder how that state will last; ISTM that eventually
> 9.1 will be supported by freebsd-update but I cannot tell when that
> might happen. Given that CVSUP is going away soon, I can't see
> reinstalling it just for this unnecessary upgrade.
> 
> Since I appear to be stuck between things, I have three questions:
> 
> 1) Is there any way to guesstimate how long until 9.1 is supported by
>    freebsd-update?
> 
> 2) Am I correct in assuming that there is no good reason (security
>    concerns, for instance) to update right now? I seem to have no
>    problems with my system; it runs fine.
> 
> 3) Does freebsd-update really require at least a Gig of space in /var
>    for a major or minor upgrade? If so, it looks like I may as well
>    reinstall the OS, since I never anticipated needing that much in
>    /var. At this point, given the amount of 'portupgrade -fr' I'll need
>    to do, it might consume less time to start from scratch.
> 
> 
> Thanks for the followup, and best regards,
> 
> Joe

Heres a work around that should work.

For your 9.1-PRERELEASE  you can temporary change that so freebsd-update 
will work for you.

Issue this console command on your system.
setenv UNAME_r "9.0-RELEASE"

Now when you run freebsd-update it will think your system is 9.0-RELEASE
and go through with the update to 9.1-RELEASE.