Downgrade 9.0 to 8.3?

Gobo

Gobo

My server is currently running FreeBSD 9.0-RELEASE on a XEN hosted VPS. Unfortunately I've found that upgrading to 9.1 is not an option (See: http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=175822). The system was installed just when 9.0 was released, so it has not run 8.3 before.

Now I wonder whether it is possible to use freebsd-update or something similar to do a downgrade to version 8.3 so that I am on a supported release again?
 
More than likely you should just re-install the OS. It may be possible building from source code, but isn't recommended at all. You could possibly have a broken system.
 
In the old days there were a LOT of difference between major versions. 3 to 4, 4 to 5 were huge changes and downgrading would have been a complete no-no. Since 5 onwards the changes have been far smaller though and in theory it shouldn't be too hard. A reinstall would definitely be the recommended way to do it, but if you compiled from source and an installworld worked without any errors then it should work OK. The main problem would be shared library versions would be wrong and all ports would have to be recompiled, but that happens on an upgrade anyway. And obviously a make delete-old wouldn't work to remove stuff that shouldn't be there. Also mergemaster might go a bit mental trying to merge configuration files and you might have to manually merge files in /etc.

The only question really would be if an installworld/kernel would actually work or not with later versions of certain files. I've done it before and downgraded boxes from -STABLE down to -RELEASE and that works fine. I've just never tested it going farther back. But for example the first version of 9.x and the last version of 8.x before 9.0 was released are not all that different from the point of view of a source build. It's just certain features were added.
 
It depends on your skills. If you're good at salvaging your system and know how to fix it in case something terrible goes wrong, go for rebuilding it from source. If you're not, backup and reinstall. In the end of the day, it will take roughly the same amount of time, and it will be easier on the nerves.
 
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