Solved Upgrading from 6.2

larryv · Jan 9, 2015

Hi,

I installed 6.2-Release on my Asus P4 server since (for some reason) 10.1 NOR 9 would install. My question, since cvs is no longer operational, what are the steps I need to do to upgrade to 10.1 using makebuild etc. and svn et al?

OR What files do I edit to point the downloads to the archived files: ftp://ftp-archive.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD-Archive/old-releases/i386/6.2-RELEASE/

Thanks.

gkontos · Jan 10, 2015

Install from scratch 10.1-RELEASE.

pkubaj · Jan 10, 2015

If you can't install 10.1 or 9.3, try 8.4, but not some ancient version. If you want to get any support here, you should use one of versions specified in http://www.freebsd.org/security/security.html

kpa · Jan 10, 2015

You can download a source tarball from the FTP mirrors if you can't use SVN for some reason and then extract it to /usr/src. For example, this would be for 9.3:

ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/releases/i386/9.3-RELEASE/src.txz

The problem is that those sources are unlikely to build on 6.2 so you would first have to fetch sources for 7.4 and do a build with them and then do the same with 8.4 and then finally to 9.3.

abishai · Jan 10, 2015

If you know that recent versions of FreeBSD is not working on your server, how can you sure they will run if you perform such upgrade? Personally I know that 9.x kernel can operate on top of 7.x userland (just don't ask). So, I'd start experiments with attempt to boot 8.0 kernel and see what happens. You can find archives here ftp://ftp-archive.freebsd.org/mirror/FreeBSD-Archive/old-releases/
Just fetch sources and try to compile them.

larryv · Jan 10, 2015

gkontos said:
Install from scratch 10.1-RELEASE.

Thanks for your reply but as I said 10.1 wouldn't install.

larryv · Jan 10, 2015

pkubaj said:
If you can't install 10.1 or 9.3, try 8.4, but not some ancient version. If you want to get any support here, you should use one of versions specified in http://www.freebsd.org/security/security.html

Thanks for your reply but for some reason 9 wouldn't install. The same with 10.

larryv · Jan 10, 2015

abishai said:
If you know that recent versions of FreeBSD is not working on your server, how can you sure they will run if you perform such upgrade? Personally I know that 9.x kernel can operate on top of 7.x userland (just don't ask). So, I'd start experiments with attempt to boot 8.0 kernel and see what happens. You can find archives here ftp://ftp-archive.freebsd.org/mirror/FreeBSD-Archive/old-releases/
Just fetch sources and try to compile them.

Thanks for your reply and this link was what couldn't remember but finally found along with a paper I had to write (years ago for my employer) detailing the steps to upgrade from an archived release to the current release. I'll update that paper and apply it to upgrade from 6.2 to 10.1.

larryv · Jan 10, 2015

kpa said:
You can download a source tarball from the FTP mirrors if you can't use SVN for some reason and then extract it to /usr/src. For example, this would be for 9.3:

ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/releases/i386/9.3-RELEASE/src.txz

The problem is that those sources are unlikely to build on 6.2 so you would first have to fetch sources for 7.4 and do a build with them and then do the same with 8.4 and then finally to 9.3.

Thanks for your reply but I think I've found the solution. See the following reply.

wblock@ · Jan 10, 2015

What does "wouldn't install" mean, exactly? The installer would not run? The installed system would not boot? Some other kind of error?

gkontos · Jan 12, 2015

larryv said:
Thanks for your reply and this link was what couldn't remember but finally found along with a paper I had to write (years ago for my employer) detailing the steps to upgrade from an archived release to the current release. I'll update that paper and apply it to upgrade from 6.2 to 10.1.

It might be cheaper (time wise) to get new hardware. Also, if both 9 and 10 don't install, we still don't know why, there is a great chance that even if you succeed on upgrading, your system won't boot.

larryv · Jan 12, 2015

wblock@ said:
What does "wouldn't install" mean, exactly? The installer would not run? The installed system would not boot? Some other kind of error?

What happens is when I try to install whether with ANY of the 10 releases (iso/disc1), it goes to mountroot> When I ? and try to mount with ufs:/dev/ada0s1 I can cat /etc/fstab and see the CD-ROM mounted but no commands work, e.g. umount - /stand/sysinstall etc.

larryv · Jan 12, 2015

gkontos said:
It might be cheaper (time wise) to get new hardware. Also, if both 9 and 10 don't install, we still don't know why, there is a great chance that even if you succeed on upgrading, your system won't boot.

You might be right except

I have a lot of hardware to see if I can get it working before investing in "new" hardware.

wblock@ · Jan 13, 2015

larryv said:
What happens is when I try to install whether with ANY of the 10 releases (iso/disc1), it goes to mountroot> When I ? and try to mount with ufs:/dev/ada0s1 I can cat /etc/fstab and see the CD-ROM mounted but no commands work, e.g. umount - /stand/sysinstall etc.

There are some misunderstandings in there. sysinstall is gone from 10.x, so that certainly won't work. The media is not at ada0s1, either. The ISO is mounted with a label. I would suggest you try USB, or at least identify the hardware. Some systems are a problem. Or you can install on a different system, then swap the hard drive into the problem one.

larryv · Jan 13, 2015

wblock@ said:
There are some misunderstandings in there. sysinstall is gone from 10.x, so that certainly won't work. The media is not at ada0s1, either. The ISO is mounted with a label. I would suggest you try USB, or at least identify the hardware. Some systems are a problem. Or you can install on a different system, then swap the hard drive into the problem one.

Hi and thanks to all for all their replies.

I started over, methodically (downloading all the ISO and disc1. Re-burned to Roxio and Nero and tried to install. All failed so I knew it must be a hardware problem. So I found an old CDROM and played with the BIOS till it showed both the CD and the SATA drive. This worked and I have 10.1 installed. Apparently the hardware will show the USB CDROM in /etc/fstab but ignore anything above FreeBSD 6.2 for installation. Because of this and this hardware, all current installations will have to be on a old CDROM since the hardware doesn't recognize USB for installs.

Again, thanks for your comments