Making world but no kernel

[Dimitry Andric]

On 2011-07-26 13:04, Jerome Herman wrote:
> I would like to know if it is possible to rebuild world, but without
> upgrading or even compiling the kernel.
>
> The problem is such : I am presently working on a FreeBSD station that
> seems to have quite a lot of problem, notably with fsck. I am starting
> to wonder whether this BSD station was properly installed, or if some of
> the system tools were pasted from older FreeBSD setup.
> Since the machine is in a remote location, I would prefer to avoid full
> reinstall if possible. Among other things, single user mode is not
> available.
>
> So I was wondering, if I get the full sources with sysinstall, can I
> make buildworld and then installworld without going through the kernel
> phase or would this be a bad idea ?

If you build world from *exactly* the same sources your currently
running kernel was built from, then yes, it should work.  That is, if
you are not running with kern.securelevel >= 1.

If you build world from newer sources, however, all bets are off.  It
might work, but also fail in various interesting ways. :)