Hello!
What is the preferred way to upgrade the OS when using custom kernel (Xen)? I use ZFS on the hypervisor.
I ask it because I ran into a problem when I tried to upgrade my Xen production server from 13.1 to 13.2. The upgrade was successful with the generic kernel but when I switched to Xen kernel it stucked during boot.
Fortunately the "freebsd-update rollback" saved the situation and I could switch back to a working 13.1 environment.
The manual says that there is a grace period (3 months) when the 13.2 stuffs are built on 13.1 server and there is not guarantee that kernel modules will work with custom kernel.
So I see two options:
1. during the grace period I compile xen-kernel and xen-tools from source. If I find problem I can roll back to the previous state with "freebsd-update rollback" + replace my compiled Xen to the previous working version (own compiled or package manager provided).
2. I tries to upgrade after the grace period. If it fails it is more tricky to roll back because not only the kernel and boot environment are changed but all user-land components. I think it is the best in this case if I reinstall it from ISO image + restore data from backup.
In this case the rollback mechanism seems a little bit complicated.
There is an another solution is in my mind: because the server has mirrored disks if I remove one from the mirror I can play with the another disk (try to upgrade or reinstall the OS) and if it fails I can restore the working state from the offline disk.
What is the preferred way to upgrade the OS when using custom kernel (Xen)? I use ZFS on the hypervisor.
I ask it because I ran into a problem when I tried to upgrade my Xen production server from 13.1 to 13.2. The upgrade was successful with the generic kernel but when I switched to Xen kernel it stucked during boot.
Fortunately the "freebsd-update rollback" saved the situation and I could switch back to a working 13.1 environment.
The manual says that there is a grace period (3 months) when the 13.2 stuffs are built on 13.1 server and there is not guarantee that kernel modules will work with custom kernel.
So I see two options:
1. during the grace period I compile xen-kernel and xen-tools from source. If I find problem I can roll back to the previous state with "freebsd-update rollback" + replace my compiled Xen to the previous working version (own compiled or package manager provided).
2. I tries to upgrade after the grace period. If it fails it is more tricky to roll back because not only the kernel and boot environment are changed but all user-land components. I think it is the best in this case if I reinstall it from ISO image + restore data from backup.
In this case the rollback mechanism seems a little bit complicated.
There is an another solution is in my mind: because the server has mirrored disks if I remove one from the mirror I can play with the another disk (try to upgrade or reinstall the OS) and if it fails I can restore the working state from the offline disk.