Future of my FreeBSD 7.2 and jails

ilovesome1

ilovesome1

Hello everyone.
I have server running FreeBSD 7.2 and 10 jails inside with Apache 2.2+PHP 5.2. I want to update Apache 2.2 to Apache 2.4 and PHP 5.2 to PHP 5.5 or 5.6 e.g.

What I have: port system don`t work: Unknown modifier 't'.
Package repository don`t work, because 7.2 is too old and only 8.4 release packages are available.
I can upgrade my host system to 8.4 via freebsd-update(8), but this server too far and my provider don`t want to create shapshot of running instance. Also I can not create backup copy in my control panel.

Of course, I can make dump of all mount points, but it takes about 2 TB, not the best way for me.

Please guide me to "right" direction guys.
Thanks in advance.
 
There's no other course of action than to upgrade to a supported version. I recommend FreeBSD 9.3 as 8.4 will become end-of-life at the start of next month.

Updating is fairly safe, even remotely. But make sure you have some sort of console access just in case.
 
SirDice, thank you for fast reply.
Should iI update host system via freebsd-update for it? And then make builworld, make installworld and make distribution in every jail directory?
 
The host system can be updated using freebsd-update(8). The jails depend on how they've been set up in the first place.

Just a note, in case you didn't know, you can run lower version jails on the host. So on a FreeBSD 10 machine you can easily run FreeBSD 7, 8 and 9 jails. Although I highly recommend keeping things in sync with the host.
 
You can still download 7.2 images, why don't you set up Virtualbox (or something similar) install FreeBSD 7.2 in it and do a few test runs with freebsd-update(8)? That way you will have some idea how it works and what to expect without having to "test" it on a live machine.
 
Yeah, of course iI did it. My virtual server has been upgraded from 7.2 to 8.4 with 3 running jails. Of course, iI need to reboot servers once or twice while running upgrade process. After all it finished well, but iI still receive different errors in my jails (e.g. last error was /usr/ports/Mk/bsd.port.mk and OSVERSION 720000).

Reboot time just is a most critical moment for me, because running services must be accessible 24/7.
 
I never understand why a company only has one server if it needs to be accessible 24/7. Try and introduce a second machine to be used in case the first dies. This is something that's always possible, even a "simple" active-passive setup will do. The added bonus of having at least two servers is that you can upgrade one while still having the services available through the other.
 
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