Solved Upgrading in place

LibreQuest

LibreQuest

I have a system that I use for backups it's using RAID 10 and it's running 14.0 I would like to upgrade it to 14.1 but I have never upgraded a FreeBSD system in place. I typically put everything on backups and then do a new install and move everything over once I'm finished. But this system has more storage than anything else I have available so I can't just move things over anywhere but I need to upgrade it.

Could anyone advise me if upgrading in place is a good idea for this system?

Thanks!
 
Root on ZFS or UFS? If ZFS, freebsd-update will do the right thing: create a new BE (Boot Environment) of the "before upgrade" (14.0), upgrade into the current BE. Or one can manually create a new BE and update into that as a chroot, including packages.

UFS should also work fine with freebsd-update, but stuff like this is why I run root on ZFS even on single disk systems.
 
I seriously wonder why "upgrade into a new BE" isn't the default mode of operation for freebsd-update(8). I personally don't use it (except for poudriere-managed jails where it's called automatically by poudriere), because I build my slightly customized base system, and with upgrading from source, doing so into a newly created BE is quite easy to do. I see nothing but advantages (especially no need to reboot until it's fully done including packages and you want to test it). :-/

Of course, for the most important aspect (a simple and reliable rollback strategy), it doesn't matter.
 
zirias@ said:
I seriously wonder why "upgrade into a new BE" isn't the default mode of operation for freebsd-update(8). I personally don't use it (except for poudriere-managed jails where it's called automatically by poudriere), because I build my slightly customized base system, and with upgrading from source, doing so into a newly created BE is quite easy to do. I see nothing but advantages (especially no need to reboot until it's fully done including packages and you want to test it). :-/

Of course, for the most important aspect (a simple and reliable rollback strategy), it doesn't matter.
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I don't know the answer to that. I would prefer it over the current, but once I understood what it's doing, it's just housekeeping (bectl rename of things). So "in-release" I let it do it's thing, but across release I do the manual create new BE and use it for chroot to freebsd-update and pkg upgrade -f. My reasoning for that is I can verify the upgrade was successful and reboot once.

LibreQuest said:
Ok thank you mer I will follow the handbook and upgrade the system with freebsd-update.
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That should be accurate. Just pay attention to the steps for across releases and don't forget to upgrade installed packages.
 
mer said:
I don't know the answer to that. I would prefer it over the current, but once I understood what it's doing, it's just housekeeping (bectl rename of things). So "in-release" I let it do it's thing, but across release I do the manual create new BE and use it for chroot to freebsd-update and pkg upgrade -f. My reasoning for that is I can verify the upgrade was successful and reboot once.


That should be accurate. Just pay attention to the steps for across releases and don't forget to upgrade installed packages.
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I will follow the process on 3 or so other of my machines prior to upgrading my backup system just to make sure that I understand the process and don't run into any surprises or issues. After completing it a few times on other systems that I need to upgrade I should be good to not need the handbook for the process and be prepared for any future updates.

I got out of the habit of upgrading in place after using Linux for 20 years and loosing data and other horrible issues. I have ever since have moved my data to a backup and upgraded my system. But if FreeBSD is able to complete the upgrade process and there is no risk to my data then I will just adjust my way of doing things.

I'm still getting used to FreeBSD I've only been a user 19 months. So I'm still very new. :D
 
LibreQuest said:
I'm still getting used to FreeBSD I've only been a user 19 months. So I'm still very new. :D
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I've been around a bit longer than that and still learn things from this forum. Coming here and asking questions and reading different threads you come across a lot of "Oh crap why didn't I think of that" and "Let me write that down/book mark it".
 
I just upgraded this machine I'm using to 14.1 and it went without issue. I honestly can't believe it. It's got nvidia-driver installed and I didn't even have to reinstall the nvidia driver. Woah! Alright. I guess this is going to go a lot smoother than I thought.

EDIT: I did have to merge the /etc/pkg/FreeBSD.conf to reflect the default 14.1 settings in vi but that was the only thing. I'll have to do that on all my systems because I have them set to latest.
 
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LibreQuest said:
I did have to merge the /etc/pkg/FreeBSD.conf to reflect the default 14.1 settings in vi but that was the only thing.
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To prevent this (with a future upgrade), leave /etc/pkg/FreeBSD.conf as-is. Put your changes (switching to latest for example) in a /usr/local/etc/pkg/repos/FreeBSD.conf, for example:
Code: 
FreeBSD: {
  url: "pkg+https://pkg.FreeBSD.org/${ABI}/latest"
}
You don't have to copy any of the other settings here, just your changes.
 
LibreQuest said:
I have a system that I use for backups it's using RAID 10 and it's running 14.0 I would like to upgrade it to 14.1 but I have never upgraded a FreeBSD system in place. I typically put everything on backups and then do a new install and move everything over once I'm finished. But this system has more storage than anything else I have available so I can't just move things over anywhere but I need to upgrade it.

Could anyone advise me if upgrading in place is a good idea for this system?

Thanks!
Click to expand...
If you did not compile anything custom (kernel, etc), then you are most likely running a RELEASE version, which is quite easy to upgrade using the freebsd-update(8) utility.
See this thread on how to do it: https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/upgrading-to-14-1.93700/
Alternatively, see this detailed one: https://www.cyberciti.biz/open-source/how-to-upgrade-freebsd-13-1-to-13-2-release/ - and just change the versions to match yours.
 
My internet was down for a while but it was fixed today! Anyway, I tried updating my Alienware Steam Machine R1 just now and it's unfortunately no longer able to run an X session. I was using nvidia-hybrid-graphics but that package is no longer available. Apparently it was replaced with nvidia-drm-kmod but I've been trying to get the X server running and have had no success. Anyone else have this system? I've attempted the suggested options listed in freshports and in the package notes however I've not been able to get it working with nvidia-driver or nvidia-drm-kmod with the hw.nvidiadrm.modeset=1 setting in /boot/loader.conf as suggested in the pkg install notes. Unsure what to do from here.
 
LibreQuest said:
My internet was down for a while but it was fixed today! Anyway, I tried updating my Alienware Steam Machine R1 just now and it's unfortunately no longer able to run an X session. I was using nvidia-hybrid-graphics but that package is no longer available. Apparently it was replaced with nvidia-drm-kmod but I've been trying to get the X server running and have had no success. Anyone else have this system? I've attempted the suggested options listed in freshports and in the package notes however I've not been able to get it working with nvidia-driver or nvidia-drm-kmod with the hw.nvidiadrm.modeset=1 setting in /boot/loader.conf as suggested in the pkg install notes. Unsure what to do from here.
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As the original issue of this thread is solved, I'd start a new thread so 1. it gets the appropriate attention with a more relevant subject and 2. doesn't get overlooked as 'solved' which is more likely read only by people interested in if it is a fix to their issue. Haven't tried hybrid nvidia graphics on FreeBSD but always despise hybrid graphics setups with every OS as they are nothing but trouble in my experience.
 
Mirror176 said:
As the original issue of this thread is solved, I'd start a new thread so 1. it gets the appropriate attention with a more relevant subject and 2. doesn't get overlooked as 'solved' which is more likely read only by people interested in if it is a fix to their issue. Haven't tried hybrid nvidia graphics on FreeBSD but always despise hybrid graphics setups with every OS as they are nothing but trouble in my experience.
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Yeah, I have had the same issues on this system with the hybrid stuff. I agree on starting a new post I will certainly do that. But I don't believe I'll run into these kinds of issues on any of my other hardware since they are not an obscure configuration like the Steam Machine. This topic is solved. :D
 
Just an update to this post. I have successfully updated all my systems to 14.1 aside from one that I moved over to GhostBSD.
 
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