During freebsd-update to 14.3-R: Timeout, server $VPS_IP_ADDRESS not responding

[dbdemon]

I was trying to upgrade my VPS to 14.3-R, but it was failing because the SSH connection kept breaking while the freebsd-update command was running with the error message "Timeout, server $VPS_IP_ADDRESS not responding" (where $VPS_IP_ADDRESS is the IPv4 address of my VPS).

I didn't have any problems with the SSH connection if I just logged in and let it sit idle. It was only after some time of running freebsd-update that it broke.

I eventually adjusted some ssh and sshd settings (and restarted sshd):
.ssh/config on client (Linux):

Host *
    ServerAliveInterval 100
    ServerAliveCountMax 10

sshd_config_local on FreeBSD VPS:

ClientAliveInterval 100
ClientAliveCountMax 10

After this, I was able to run the freebsd-update command without the ssh connection breaking.

I did get an error later in the process, when running the final freebsd-update install command:

# freebsd-update install
Installing updates...gunzip: (stdin): unexpected end of file

.. but the process continued and completed seemingly successfully.

# freebsd-version -kru
14.3-RELEASE
14.3-RELEASE
14.3-RELEASE

Should I be worried about the gunzip error?

Are there better ways to prevent the "Timeout, server $VPS_IP_ADDRESS not responding" problem?

 

[SirDice]

If you do the upgrade remotely, I always do this in a tmux(1) or screen(1) session. If you get disconnected half way through the update you can just relogin and pick up the session, it will keep running when you get disconnected.

# freebsd-update install Installing updates...
gunzip: (stdin): unexpected end of file

That's not good, could be because the download got interrupted (due to the disconnect), another common reason for this error is running out of disk space.

 

[dbdemon]

If you do the upgrade remotely, I always do this in a tmux(1) or screen(1) session. If you get disconnected half way through the update you can just relogin and pick up the session, it will keep running when you get disconnected.

Ah yes. I guess I should start doing that, it's just that I pretty much never had trouble with just plain ssh before.

That's not good, could be because the download got interrupted (due to the disconnect), another common reason for this error is running out of disk space.

I am actually somewhat low on disk space, just 3.7G available at the moment ...
I guess I can't just re-run the final freebsd-update install command?

Things seem to work just fine, though.

 

[SirDice]

You could double-check with freebsd-update IDS.

     IDS       Compare the system against a "known good" index of the
               installed release.

I guess I can't just re-run the final freebsd-update install command?

No, it's been registered as "done", so the system will simply inform you there's nothing to install anymore. If you have ZFS you might switch back to a BE from before the upgrade. Alternatively, you could restart the entire upgrade process with something like freebsd-update -r 14.3-RELEASE --currently-running 14.2-RELEASE. You'll need to add --currently-running and set this to your previous version, or freebsd-update(8) is going to complain it can't upgrade to the same version it's currently running.

     --currently-running release
                    Do not detect the currently-running release; instead,
                    assume that the system is running the specified release.
                    This is most likely to be useful when upgrading jails.

 

[dbdemon]

You could double-check with freebsd-update IDS.

Thank you!

I guess most of the files listed are ones I've edited, so I think it looks mostly OK? Maybe except /usr/lib/libncursesw_real.a ...

# freebsd-update IDS
Looking up update.FreeBSD.org mirrors... 3 mirrors found.
Fetching metadata signature for 14.3-RELEASE from update2.freebsd.org... failed.
Fetching metadata signature for 14.3-RELEASE from update1.freebsd.org... done.
Fetching metadata index... done.
Fetching 1 metadata patches. done.
Applying metadata patches... done.
Fetching 1 metadata files... done.
Inspecting system... done.
/etc/freebsd-update.conf has SHA256 hash 0326bbf5c40f6e15bddcd4ef9355be3fe43a8fafe1dc76243121614f95566651, but should have SHA256 hash 7d5c93970248cc063dd24a6fd8f76cb638352343595f1b74485bcc59e47e85f0.
/etc/group has SHA256 hash 550d6c716fc2c7fbb3875d9e485197b842e88f83614b0ad14a754946e49a185f, but should have SHA256 hash a76791033e18dcb526c30a6417bdb31ef774649f84e7f4ca0e745549cb15729c.
/etc/hosts has SHA256 hash d4e2cafe835558f574999e3b3fcb641603b3942ffab42ec3d76c8fdb241d9b9c, but should have SHA256 hash 336de0d20e14a6e526e147580ef5b0a7167a4ff4ebd788222d71e4c238e7ab2e.
/etc/mail/aliases has SHA256 hash a67b4749f436a2f9f3e68a7da11cbd9d80deb1187506e50a294a3a7760d5c178, but should have SHA256 hash f98a9312846abdb5095b1162100fa8d56ba665beb3779239aee94a6c8d44a88f.
/etc/master.passwd has SHA256 hash 8d7b332739ab12216ee302527be17a0a41c67d264518f504068abafd97890faf, but should have SHA256 hash 55dfb5a41ebad44523b26cba443d94c3d55e0b39a32558f81a1d50fed964ec34.
/etc/ntp.conf has SHA256 hash 099d0bad338a2f4f834b3e7816f1382dd179eefa9ae3bb3fb23fb171eb9f037b, but should have SHA256 hash f518111399afe23bc29e1812b27dcb2c967e629c4c4de4669b6482f2fff24121.
/etc/passwd has SHA256 hash 3f7e3ff32a2a36fe977a13e7297f0e3a38c82b84d874ca42d45baa34f23418b9, but should have SHA256 hash 57d2a756f16439eb2bc13af8d4b0a958ccec88643c6246cfc00e5b0894417eec.
/etc/pwd.db has SHA256 hash e15da9c5a2a7196a125ed37be7aaf641ea112a32ee8798e1d91a733767735f53, but should have SHA256 hash bd30e09f6e06e4430bbb8fa20c4ed46babaec585d5580a92244c6a4227c5af56.
/etc/shells has SHA256 hash 104a7ae39fc4a5dbc7f7fa92264efa9be49118319692972e730ee2cb2e64b8ac, but should have SHA256 hash d4f435c3c24679f19609fcf0e78c473c85582cd0300ebcc0ac3088c34408cde4.
/etc/spwd.db has SHA256 hash 54a72885e4772ebf6836d541bddf7efa9b5c03825c3e3dda5e35eb3f7b198954, but should have SHA256 hash 5b8454a1d288eef2ed215f2280ac5cf9e9197ac1d2a1e46a67ba38c2c0c370e7.
/etc/sysctl.conf has SHA256 hash d34d6f2a7fdfb7df2302823c1890c4fd2c35486296c9ff1cba60c4df5d8f8627, but should have SHA256 hash 45f469e7a9b4eef887bab7b55397305043fe101e1d6ce6f7e23d758e72f56dc6.
/root/.shrc has SHA256 hash e49c624eae6592d79b628aaf29508b3429211f2e1327ed0d6ff93a8ea2ea167a, but should have SHA256 hash e4e134ae8accc08a6ab1d7836dc0cb7ccdc919dd69067a02b23f868a917de7f0.
/usr/lib/libncursesw_real.a has SHA256 hash 3424e49368bef79315d10bc57307b0506cf543995aeed9f2dcb2b431048d846c, but should have SHA256 hash 2f4056749a65e1e8d134c67510ab08f80181bc7793c299d6022d2e45c44ce1ed.
/var/mail is owned by user id 1002, but should be owned by user id 0.
/var/mail is owned by group id 1002, but should be owned by group id 6.

If you have ZFS you might switch back to a BE from before the upgrade.

No ZFS, unfortunately.