freebsd-update from 8.0-RELEASE to 8.1-RELEASE damaged system

laurelraven

laurelraven

Hi...I needed to get my webserver upgraded, and decided on moving up to 8.1 since it has the longest time until EOL in the 8.x branch right now. My system was already running 8.0-RELEASE, and had been since it was initially installed. It is one of a pair of webservers that are almost identical (one primary, one sitting in standby in case something goes wrong). This is the standby server, and I was getting it upgraded and was going to swap them out and then upgrade the primary server while it is "offline".

I followed the instructions in http://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/updating-freebsdupdate.html under section 26.2.3 Major and Minor Upgrades. Everything seemed to be going fine, but when I got to the first reboot, a lot of things didn't come back up. I was expecting things like cherokee to maybe fail until it got rebuilt, but ssh stopped working, and freebsd-update doesn't seem to be working anymore either.

When I run "freebsd-update install", I get back:

Code: 
Installing updates...Update files missing -- this should never happen.
Re-run '/usr/sbin/freebsd-update fetch'

So, I ran the command it suggested, and got:

Code: 
Looking up update.FreeBSD.org mirrors... 4 mirrors found.
fetching metadata signature for 8.1-RELEASE from update4.freebsd.org... Segmentation fault (core dumped)
failed.
fetching metadata signature for 8.1-RELEASE from update5.freebsd.org... Segmentation fault (core dumped)
failed.
fetching metadata signature for 8.1-RELEASE from update2.freebsd.org... Segmentation fault (core dumped)
failed.
fetching metadata signature for 8.1-RELEASE from update3.freebsd.org... Segmentation fault (core dumped)
failed.
No mirrors remaining, giving up.

I also tried freebsd-update rollback, but it just says there are no rollback files.

Oh, and when I tried pinging another system just to see if the network was working at all, I got:

Code: 
/libexec/ld-elf.so.1: /lib/libm.so.5: Shared object has no run-time symbol table

So...is it just gone? I can get it back to where it was, but it may involve taking the website down for half an hour or so while I make a copy of it, and I'd like to try to avoid that. I may even be able to mount its SAN snapshot and make a copy that way...but, even then, I still need to get the server upgraded.

Any suggestions? I'll answer any question I can, and if I can find some magical way to get files off of the server, I'd be more than happy to upload them.

Thanks in advance!
 
Do you get the same error when you run other commands, e.g. ls?

If so, you'll need to boot off a livecd or something like that and copy that missing library, i.e. /lib/libm.so.5.

In the future, you should probably refer to the directions in the actual Release Announcement:
http://www.freebsd.org/releases/8.1R/announce.html

The directions in the Handbook are more of a "this is everything you could possibly do with freebsd-update" and the Release Announcement directions are more like "this is the short path to the upgrade".
 
I'll check that out when I get back in the office on Monday.

I've also pulled a backup of that virtual hard disk image from before my attempt, so I may just go back to that and upgrade from there. At this point, it may be more academic to repair the failed upgrade, but it will be a learning experience. I'll admit, I'm still somewhat of a noob administrator with FreeBSD, but I love everything I've seen with it, which is why I chose it for my company's webserver, it's rock solid. That being said, there are some things I still need to learn where to get my info from. I basically said "gee, I need to upgrade" and started with Google.

I'm really glad I set the server up with a passive standby that I can do this sort of work on first and get the kinks out.

Thanks for pointing me to the release announcement. I'll know to look for those in the future!
 
Well, I pulled the backup virtual drive and booted from that, then tried the upgrade using the method in the release notes for 8.1, but upon rebooting, it seems like it's not mounting anything other than the root partition (I can't log in...I suspect it's because it can't find bash), and it fails to load SSH, and throws a segmentation fault on some other things. I tried booting into single user mode, but none of the text editors I'm familiar with (such as vi) seem to be available, so I'm not sure what good that really will do me.

I'm going to reload from backup again. Not sure what else to do to upgrade, if the preferred path just trashes the system. Any suggestions as to the next path to take on this?

I did download the DVD. I hope I don't have to use it to do a fresh install.
 
Oh. this may make me look like an idiot for asking, but I'll do so anyway:

I think I installed my third party software on this server from ports rather than as binaries. I figured they might break and I'd have to reinstall them, but didn't think it would cause the upgrade to fail (since the base should, in my own theory, be able to update itself and boot fine, even if the other parts don't work right away). Could this be causing the issue? And, if so, how do I upgrade with that being the case?

I really appreciate your help so far.
 
laurelraven said:
I think I installed my third party software on this server from ports rather than as binaries. I figured they might break and I'd have to reinstall them, but didn't think it would cause the upgrade to fail (since the base should, in my own theory, be able to update itself and boot fine, even if the other parts don't work right away).
Click to expand...

That's correct, ports are separate from the base.

Could this be causing the issue? And, if so, how do I upgrade with that being the case?
Click to expand...

It's unlikely. Someone else, or possibly you, reported a problem with a similar upgrade using freebsd-update on the mailing lists.

Why not just upgrade with source?
 
wblock: That's what I thought. I'll look into the mailing list and see if I can find the post; it wasn't me who posted it. If I can't figure this out, I will give a source upgrade a try.

mix_room: I'll try that and report back next week.

All of you: Thank you for your help so far!
 
I would still suggest you keep to the freebsd-update method if you have time to work with us a bit..

Can you please capture the output of the upgrade using the script command or something similar and post them online somewhere? I would like to see each and every step you are taking.
 
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