Is it possible to roll back a major upgrade with freebsd-update?

Juanitou

Juanitou

Hi! I would like to test the latest 10.0-BETA3 by upgrading my actual 9.2-RELEASE. I’ve always updated/upgraded my system through freebsd-update and never found a problem, but I’ve never done a major upgrade.

I’m a bit concerned about the compatibility of my old computer with this version and I would like to have the possibility of rolling back to 9.2.

I’ve carefully read the freebsd-update(8) man page as well as the FreeBSD Update handbook section and I’m not sure about the possibility to roll back such an upgrade. From the manual (my highlighting):
Code: 
     The command can be any one of the following:
...
     install      Install the most recently fetched [B]updates or upgrade[/B].
     rollback     Uninstall the most recently installed [B]updates[/B].

Does this imply that freebsd-update rollback would not work for major upgrades?

Thanks in advance!
 
That would be my interpretation as well. In general the best way to undo an OS upgrade is by restoring a previously made backup.
 
I wouldn't risk it regardless of what the documentation says/means. If you have a spare hard drive around, you could just throw in into the machine and do a new install to see if 10 works on it.
 
Thanks for your advice. I have decided to follow the release notes and upgrade through freebsd-update. Some errors appeared after the first reboot (no sshd, no smbd, no wlan…) but restarting the services seem to have resolved the issue. I’m now happily rebuilding all the ports, I hope all will be well, then I’ll try the WITH_NEW_XORG switch and the new AMD GPUs kernel-modesetting support, which was the main reason for trying the upgrade, since it not worked at first.

In the meantime, I have written a message to Colin Percival concerning the somewhat ambiguous content of the man page, we’ll see.
 
For the record, I tested updating an spare VMware 9.2 system to 10.0-BETA3 then directly roll back and it worked! freebsd-update did it perfectly. Mind you, updating the system AND the ports then rolling back will certainly not work as seamlessly: my system is broken now, but hey, research has its risks… :)
 
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