Updating existing FreeBSD 11.0 Kernel, World

[economicpygmy]

I have a few questions regarding the process of updating an entire system after reading the FreeBSD manual and hacking my way through a few problems.
https://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/updating-upgrading.html

If I understand correctly:

• kernel is the core operating system running in privileged mode.
• world is the base system except kernel and not anything in /etc, /var and /usr
• userland is a term to describe world (?)
• packages and ports are both methods used to install the same applications to the same location.

Updating Kernel and Userland
I would like to update a FreeBSD box from 11.0 to the latest RELEASE. To determine the version I used:

# freebsd-version -k    show kernel version/revision.
# freebsd-version -u    show userland version/revision.

One issue is that the above display different versions, 11.1 for kernel and 11.0 for userland. I presume this is because the update has not completed.

From what I read the following process should be enough to update kernel/userland.

# freebsd-update fetch       1. - fetch updates   
# freebsd-update install     2. - updates the kernel
# shutdown -r now            3. - reboot
# freebsd-update install     4. - update userland
# freebsd-update install     5. - clean up

If this is incorrect; how many times and in what order should these commands be issued?
Presumably the above 5 steps would update to the latest RELEASE i.e. 11.1 and the following command is to upgrade to a specific version?

# freebsd-update -r 9.1-RELEASE upgrade

 

[SirDice]

One issue is that the above display different versions, 11.1 for kernel and 11.0 for userland. I presume this is because the update has not completed.

Correct. It looks like freebsd-update install was ran only once. It will need to be run a couple of times.

If this is incorrect; how many times and in what order should these commands be issued?

It's correct, only the first command should be something like freebsd-update -r 11.1-RELEASE upgrade instead of freebsd-update fetch. The latter command only downloads patches for your current version. For those you don't need to run the install multiple times, once will suffice. It's only an upgrade that requires the install part to be run multiple times.

Besides these minor details you appear to understand the process perfectly.

 

[ShelLuser]

• kernel is the core operating system running in privileged mode.
• world is the base system except kernel and not anything in /etc, /var and /usr
• userland is a term to describe world (?)
• packages and ports are both methods used to install the same applications to the same location.

World is the base system but that includes /etc, /var and /usr. Usually it's /usr/local where everything which is not part of the base system gets installed.

Userland is a description for the virtual environment where software gets executed outside kernel space. A process which runs within kernel space has far wider access than something outside of that, in userspace. For example: there's a huge difference if /bin/ls gets run as root or nobody. But that distinction does not exist within kernel space. As such.. userland.

Packages and ports... yes. The same location being /usr/local. The main difference between the two is that ports can be fully configured whereas packages always follow the default configuration.