freebsd-stable or freebsd-release

I would say that in a production server environment, a release is the best choice. And if possible stay on the GENERIC kernel tracking OS upgrades and patches using freebsd-update
 
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/current-stable.html


24.5.2.1 What Is FreeBSD-STABLE?

FreeBSD-STABLE is our development branch from which major releases are made. Changes go into this branch at a different pace, and with the general assumption that they have first gone into FreeBSD-CURRENT for testing. This is still a development branch, however, and this means that at any given time, the sources for FreeBSD-STABLE may or may not be suitable for any particular purpose. It is simply another engineering development track, not a resource for end-users.
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I tend to use release+patches on most servers, I sometimes use stable on non commercial servers and/or when stable has a change that I need that is yet in the release branch.

Personally I have never encountered a problem with stable that has compromised system stability, I have once encountered an issue where buildworld was broken but that did not impact the running system.
 
There are sometimes even for production servers no alternatives to stable due to many bugfixes/improvements which you just don't get in releases. It doesn't matter whether you're using stable or release, use the best tool for the job and this is sometimes just stable. An entry in the handbook or some advice will not help you, you have to try it yourself.
 
Errata Branches is possibly best choise for production.

Quote from Absolute FreeBSD by Michael W. Lucas:
The security team provides the errata branches to support users who want their system to remain as stable as humanly possible without sacrificing security.
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>Errata Branches is possibly best choise for production.

"The best" choice is the system that actually works at all. If I have a look at the amount of bugfixes in ZFS after the release -- among lots of others, I guess using release would be a bad choice.

>as stable as humanly possible without sacrificing security.

Tell me something: what do you mean with stable while citing this quote? Since using 5.0 even on server, stable was the best choice for stability among a plethora of hardware. Using bleeding edge ports or a mixture of ports and packages etc. is anything but stable for a server.
 
If someone were actually paying me to administer (minister? shepherd?) a server or a whole flock (congregation? synod?) of servers, I would run one of
  • whatever they told^H^H^H^Hwon a fight with me to run (including commie-ware from Norway)
  • N.X-RELEASE that worked for the task at hand (probably making a javascript button go *boop*) or
  • whatever I could make work on their garbage hardware (while cursing the untimely death of Konrad Zuse)
In that order.

If I were fluent in English, I would have just told you to run -RELEASE, unless there was some powerful reason otherwise.
 
>whatever I could make work on their garbage hardware

In this order: FBSD release, FBSD stable and as last resort Linux :D
 
oliverh said:
>whatever I could make work on their garbage hardware

In this order: FBSD release, FBSD stable and as last resort Linux :D
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Well, back in early 2009, I had to run 8-CURRENT on this here laptop for any wireless and for decent USB support. One of my favourite aspect of FreeBSD is that if you're somewhat careful, even the bleeding edge is generally more stable and useful than Unbunutu.
 
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