Upgrade FreeBSD 6.3 to 9.2?

[cerulean]

I have an old FreeBSD 6.3 machine and looking to get it up-to-date. The upgrade guides I have found go from the previous major version the current (ie 8 to 9). Can I go 6.3 to 9.2 direct or does it need to be incremental (6.3 to 7 to 8 to 9.2)? If incremental, after the base system is upgraded, do I reinstall ports on the 9.2 version?

Also, the server has a gmirror RAID. I was thinking of breaking the RAID (possibly physically removing one of the drives) during the upgrade process so I have a fully working 6.3 install in the event it messes up. Any issues with this?

 

[pkubaj]

In theory, you should be able upgrade to 9.2 directly. In practice however, my path would be 6.3->6.4->7.4->8.4->9.2. You should reinstall all ports after upgrading to 9.2, reinstalling them after each incremental upgrade is not needed. Just have in mind that many ports you were using back in 6.3 days may not exist in the current ports tree.

 

[wblock@]

Also, the server has a gmirror RAID. I was thinking of breaking the RAID (possibly physically removing one of the drives) during the upgrade process so I have a fully working 6.3 install in the event it messes up. Any issues with this?

The odds are pretty high that the mirror was created with the old Handbook instructions, and will not mount with FreeBSD 9 unless error checking is disabled.

Beyond that, the applications installed on 6.3 will have changed in the meantime. So rather than an in-place upgrade, I would install 9.2 on a new hard disk and transfer the application data to the new system.

Whatever you do, please make sure you have a full backup of the 6.3 system before doing anything. See Backup Options For FreeBSD.