freebsd-update for live installation (8.2 to 8.3)

[ManDec]

Hi there,

At the end of this month, our FreeBSD 8.2 installation will no more be supported by the FreeBSD Security team.

I'd like to use freebsd-update(8) since it looks the more convenient way to update the whole system from FreeBSD 8.2 to FreeBSD 8.3. But I don't have any experiences with freebsd-update.

I already started to read the documentation.

http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/updating-upgrading-freebsdupdate.html

And paying attention especially on this section:

25.2.3 Major and Minor Upgrades

We don't have special stuff on this system, just the usual like Apache, PHP, Subversion, Python, Ruby, etc.

My questions are:

1. Can I use freebsd-update(8) on a "live" installation like ours?

2. Do you think that upgrading from 8.2 to 8.3 implicate a lot of downtime beside rebooting the system?

3. Can you please advice on a general strategy or point me to some resources on the Web.

Thanks!

 

[SirDice]

1. Can I use freebsd-update(8) on a "live" installation like ours?

Yes.

2. Do you think that upgrading from 8.2 to 8.3 implicate a lot of downtime beside rebooting the system?

Probably not.

3. Can you please advice on a general strategy or point me to some resources on the Web.

Run freebsd-update(8), follow directions, reboot.

 

[wblock@]

At the end of this month, our FreeBSD 8.2 installation will no more be supported by the FreeBSD Security team.

Cutting it a bit close there.

2. Do you think that upgrading from 8.2 to 8.3 implicate a lot of downtime beside rebooting the system?

3. Can you please advice on a general strategy or point me to some resources on the Web.

The empirical way is to restore a backup of the current system to another computer or a VM, then do a full dress rehearsal of the update on that temporary system. It's a low-stress way to see if anything unexpected will happen.

 

[dave]

I just did the same upgrade on a live system about a week ago: from 8.2 to 8.3. It took a total of a half hour, and total downtime was about 2 minutes: two reboots, one minute each.

I always follow the FreeBSD Update section in the Installation Instructions and have never had a problem.

http://www.freebsd.org/releases/8.3R/installation.html

 

[gkontos]

2. Do you think that upgrading from 8.2 to 8.3 implicate a lot of downtime beside rebooting the system?
Thanks!

I just want to stay here a bit. Experience has shown that planning for the worse usually delivers the best results.

Normally you shouldn't anticipate much down time. But, always have backups and make sure that your ports are up to date.
Things to consider:

• Am I running a GENERIC kernel?
• Do the Release notes include an update in a driver I might be using?
• Can I roll back?

Answering those questions will make your upgrade move more smoothly because you will feel more confident.
You could always go through the build world & kernel procedure, boot with the new kernel, see that everything looks ok and then install the world.