possibly silly question regarding freebsd-update

[Steve O'Hara-Smith]

On Wed, 14 Aug 2019 12:59:09 -0400
"Kevin P. Neal" <kpn at neutralgood.org> wrote:

> On Wed, Aug 14, 2019 at 03:59:40PM +0100, tech-lists wrote:
> > Hi,
> > 
> > I've used freebsd for a long while but freebsd-update only relatively
> > recently. I have always rebooted the server after freebsd-update
> > install.
> > 
> > I was wondering - is rebooting a requirement?
> 
> You can't have a userland newer than the kernel or things will tend to
> fall over. So the kernel is installed first, reboot, and then userland is
> updated.

	Yes for an upgrade to a newer release but not for an update to the
latest patch level, there old kernel should support the userland just fine
(modulo bugs) and so a reboot is only needed if there is a new kernel.

> So, yes, I'd go ahead and reboot after finishing the install. And there's
> nothing freebsd-update specific about that advice.

	That is indeed the simplest and safest way to ensure that everything
that needs to be restarted is, but not the only way.

-- 
Steve O'Hara-Smith <steve at sohara.org>