Binary upgrade from 8.4 to 10.1

[Gregory Orange]

Hi Paul,

On 04/08/15 05:17, Paul Schmehl wrote:
> I want to upgrade from FreeBSD 8.4 RElEASE to FreeBSD 10.1 RELEASE using
> FreeBSD update.

I can't provide documentation or any certainty that it will work the 
same for you as me, but I guess you might consider this a proof of 
concept. Last month I upgraded a dozen or so FreeBSD 8.4-RELEASE amd64 
machines to FreeBSD 10.1-RELEASE amd64 with this process, all run as root:

freebsd-update fetch install
freebsd-update -r 10.1-RELEASE upgrade
# Does this look reasonable (y/n)? y
# manual intervention for diffs etc
freebsd-update install
reboot

freebsd-update install
# Because ECDSA key wasn't present:
ssh-keygen -Av
pkg install -yf pkg
pkg install $(pkg info -aoq)
freebsd-update install
freebsd-update fetch install
# new shared objects made cron stop working until after a restart
# reboot would be more drastic but would fix any other similar issues
service cron restart
tail -F /var/log/auth.log /var/log/messages /var/log/cron

----

I had a critical failure on one hosted machine. SATA cables turned out 
to be faulty, and the upgrade wrote some files successfully but not 
others, leaving the machine in an unbootable state. High-latency console 
access is the last straw, causing me to give up and rebuild the machine.

I don't blame FreeBSD for this (nor any OS which can't beat this 
problem!), but mention it as a(n albeit unlikely) possibility to consider.

HTH,
Greg.