Updating CURRENT from Snapshots?

[wago]

I've always built CURRENT from source, but I see there's an install snapshot repository that appears to be updated weekly. Is anyone updating their system from snapshots? Is that a thing?

 

[Cath O'Deray]

As far as I know, snapshots at e.g. <https://download.freebsd.org/snapshots/amd64/amd64/ISO-IMAGES/14.0/> are intended solely for installing, not for updating.

I guess, it's possible to extract contents, put things into place then perform the various tasks that must follow simple placement, but honestly: the time spent on that set of unusual tasks would be better spent on the usual method.

(In this respect, what's true for CURRENT should be also true for STABLE.)

… a thing?

PkgBase will be more of a thing, if you're interested.

Solved - PkgBase

… how to safely update the system (regardless of how far out of date) reliably. … Let's assume that PkgBase is the way forward. and so on. {link removed} In addition to the list, there's sometimes discussion of PkgBase in IRC for FreeBSD. Retrospective (2018–2019)...

forums.freebsd.org

 

[SirDice]

Is that a thing?

Simple answer, no. Both -STABLE and -CURRENT are updated by building from source.

 

[obsigna]

I've always built CURRENT from source, but I see there's an install snapshot repository that appears to be updated weekly. Is anyone updating their system from snapshots? Is that a thing?

I do this.

Howto: Updating FreeBSD x.y-CURRENT installations using respective snapshots

freebsd-update is limited to RELEASE installations, and therefore updating CURRENT is not straightforward. The handbook suggests Synchronizing (the) Source and than Rebuilding (the) World. For sure this is feasible on fast hardware, however this is not a viable option on the various ARM devices...

forums.freebsd.org

 

[Cath O'Deray]

obsigna thank you, I hadn't seen that before.

I guess, … the time spent on that set of unusual tasks would be better spent …

– please know, that wasn't a swipe at your guide (or any other alternative approach), genuinely it was just a guess.

 

[forquare]

***TOTALLY UNSUPPORTED***
A few years ago mondieu was featured on the BSDNow podcast. I have used it a number of times and it appears to work. I would not personally guarantee its function but I've done several upgrades if a test VM with it, including over major versions (i.e. from 13.0-CURRENT to 14.0-CURRENT), and my experience has been that everything I've needed to do has been fine.
The VM was not a daily driver, and was used to test out some building of Ports.

 

[Cath O'Deray]

Thank you,

…mondieu…

Lunch hour at work. I'll test on a mobile hard disk drive that's occasionally used for testing.

Spoiler: Preliminary

test@mowa219-gjp4-freebsd-d31121-mobile:~ % su -
Password:
root@mowa219-gjp4-freebsd-d31121-mobile:~ # bectl list -c creation
BE                   Active Mountpoint Space Created
default              -      -          6.43G 2021-07-18 09:59
n2-f4e67f18b-a       -      -          1.65G 2021-07-24 00:28
n2-f4e67f18b-b       -      -          8.19G 2021-07-26 03:52
n494-d4da692862f19-a -      -          4.06G 2021-08-13 14:19
n4390-e92ffd9b626-a  NR     /          49.2G 2022-01-23 14:14
root@mowa219-gjp4-freebsd-d31121-mobile:~ # pkg search mondieu
pkg: repository FreeBSD contains packages for wrong OS version: FreeBSD:14:amd64
root@mowa219-gjp4-freebsd-d31121-mobile:~ # pkg update -f
Updating FreeBSD repository catalogue...
Fetching meta.conf: 100%    163 B   0.2kB/s    00:01
Fetching packagesite.pkg: 100%    6 MiB   6.7MB/s    00:01
Processing entries:   0%
Newer FreeBSD version for package liblrdf:
To ignore this error set IGNORE_OSVERSION=yes
- package: 1400051
- running kernel: 1400048
Ignore the mismatch and continue? [y/N]: y
Processing entries: 100%
FreeBSD repository update completed. 31264 packages processed.
All repositories are up to date.
root@mowa219-gjp4-freebsd-d31121-mobile:~ # pkg search mondieu
root@mowa219-gjp4-freebsd-d31121-mobile:~ # uname -aKU
FreeBSD mowa219-gjp4-freebsd-d31121-mobile 14.0-CURRENT FreeBSD 14.0-CURRENT #3 main-e92ffd9b62: Sun Jan 23 12:32:28 GMT 2022     root@mowa219-gjp4-freebsd-d31121-mobile:/usr/obj/usr/src/amd64.amd64/sys/GENERIC-NODEBUG  amd64 1400048 1400048
root@mowa219-gjp4-freebsd-d31121-mobile:~ # pkg info -x git
git-2.34.1
gitup-0.96
libgit2-1.3.0
root@mowa219-gjp4-freebsd-d31121-mobile:~ # bectl create n252875-e2fe58d61b7-a
root@mowa219-gjp4-freebsd-d31121-mobile:~ # bectl activate n252875-e2fe58d61b7-a
Successfully activated boot environment n252875-e2fe58d61b7-a
root@mowa219-gjp4-freebsd-d31121-mobile:~ #

Postscripts

FreeBSD bug 261863 – Update and correct the /snapshots/ page

Note to self: <https://download.freebsd.org/snapshots/amd64/14.0-CURRENT/>

 

[Cath O'Deray]

For reference:

Merge: disorientation · Issue #5 · skoef/mondieu

Hi First impression: disorientation (sorry). I see neither left, nor right: Please, might the tool be modernised to use etcupdate(8)?

github.com

Support not required, I find it less confusing to build and install from source.