Hello guys. I have a couple of ancient FreeBSD install that I have to bring into this century (read either 10.4 or 11.1) :-) I'm talking about a FreeBSD 8.0-RELEASE-p4 and a couple of FreeBSD 9.3-RELEASE-p53. What upgrade strategy would you suggest? Direct jump into the future (8 -> 11)? Progressive steps (8 -> 9 -> 10 -> 11)? Boiling water on the HDs? :-) Thanks, any suggestion in more than welcome. -- Andrea Brancatelli
On 19/01/2018 12:28, Andrea Brancatelli wrote:> Hello guys. > > I have a couple of ancient FreeBSD install that I have to bring into > this century (read either 10.4 or 11.1) :-) > > I'm talking about a FreeBSD 8.0-RELEASE-p4 and a couple of FreeBSD > 9.3-RELEASE-p53. >I've just done a 9.3 to 10.3 upgrade with freebsd-update and pkg. Networking wasn't avalable when the system was running 10.3 kernel with 9.3 userland so I did that part of the update on the console. That system started life as a FreeBSD 5.x system and got left to rot at that version for a long time because it was an internal system with no external security exposure. I gradually upgraded it (using source builds) from major version to major version until I got to 9.3 and then did the 9.3 to 10.3 as a binary upgrade. Only other trap I fell into with was packages. The system uses ldap for auth although fortunately it does have some local network accessible accounts. ldap auth was broken until I did the package update as the 9.3 pam_ldap modules caused SSH to delay password based authentication and the auth processes seg-faulted.> What upgrade strategy would you suggest? > > Direct jump into the future (8 -> 11)? Progressive steps (8 -> 9 -> 10 > -> 11)? Boiling water on the HDs? :-) >If freebsd-update will do an upgrade from 8 to 10 or 8 to 11 and you have console access it ought to work. The upgrade process can be rolled back if the system doesn't like the new kernel for some reason and nothing gets installed anywhere else until the second stage of the upgrade. I'd probably go via 8->9.3->10/11 as those are the upgrade paths that were well tested. Also don't forget the full system backups before starting. :) Mike
Hi!> I have a couple of ancient FreeBSD install that I have to bring into > this century (read either 10.4 or 11.1) :-) > > I'm talking about a FreeBSD 8.0-RELEASE-p4 and a couple of FreeBSD > 9.3-RELEASE-p53. > > What upgrade strategy would you suggest?The best way is to update stepwise using freebsd-update, so: 8.0 -> 8.3 -> 9.1 -> 9.3 -> 10.1 -> 10.3> Direct jump into the future (8 -> 11)? Progressive steps (8 -> 9 -> 10 > -> 11)? Boiling water on the HDs? :-)Stepwise. Huge jumps have too many rough edges. -- pi at opsec.eu +49 171 3101372 2 years to go !
On Fri, Jan 19, 2018 at 4:28 AM, Andrea Brancatelli < abrancatelli at schema31.it> wrote:> Hello guys. > > I have a couple of ancient FreeBSD install that I have to bring into > this century (read either 10.4 or 11.1) :-) > > I'm talking about a FreeBSD 8.0-RELEASE-p4 and a couple of FreeBSD > 9.3-RELEASE-p53. > > What upgrade strategy would you suggest? > > Direct jump into the future (8 -> 11)? Progressive steps (8 -> 9 -> 10 > -> 11)? Boiling water on the HDs? :-) >?I like to do it in steps. It takes longer, but the results tend to be better. 8.0 --> last 8.x release --> 9.0 --> last 9.x release --> 10.0 --> last 10.x release --> 11.0 --> last 11.x release Backup /usr/local/etc and any other configuration files that are strewn about. Then format/delete /usr/ports/* and /usr/local/* and install the ports/packages you need. Of course, for something that ancient, it would probably be faster/better to just backup the config files, format the drives, and install 11.1 from scratch. :) -- Freddie Cash fjwcash at gmail.com
On Fri, Jan 19, 2018 at 01:28:41PM +0100, Andrea Brancatelli wrote:> Hello guys. > > I have a couple of ancient FreeBSD install that I have to bring into > this century (read either 10.4 or 11.1) :-) > > I'm talking about a FreeBSD 8.0-RELEASE-p4 and a couple of FreeBSD > 9.3-RELEASE-p53. > > What upgrade strategy would you suggest? > > Direct jump into the future (8 -> 11)? Progressive steps (8 -> 9 -> 10 > -> 11)? Boiling water on the HDs? :-) > > Thanks, any suggestion in more than welcome.The *supported* upgrade strategy is to upgrade to the latest version of your current branch, and jump from latest version to latest version. So 8.4 -> 9.3 -> 10.4 -> 11.1. (Note that you can stay at 10.4, it still is supported.) -- Mathieu Arnold -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 963 bytes Desc: not available URL: <http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-stable/attachments/20180119/c79b4b00/attachment.sig>
On Fri, 19 Jan 2018 13:28:41 +0100 Andrea Brancatelli <abrancatelli at schema31.it> wrote: Andrea Brancatelli writes:> Hello guys. > > I have a couple of ancient FreeBSD install that I have to bring into > this century (read either 10.4 or 11.1) :-) > > I'm talking about a FreeBSD 8.0-RELEASE-p4 and a couple of FreeBSD > 9.3-RELEASE-p53. > > What upgrade strategy would you suggest? > > Direct jump into the future (8 -> 11)? Progressive steps (8 -> 9 -> 10 > -> 11)? Boiling water on the HDs? :-) > > Thanks, any suggestion in more than welcome.Incremental update will take a long time and if something gets messed up in the middle, you will be much worse off. You may also not find relevant packages any more for an EOLed release. And you may have to solve problems that no longer exist on newer packages. What I would do is to make a backup of everything, make a list of installed packages and config files, and do a fresh install of the latest release. Then get the critical packages working. Then add others as needed. If possible do this on a separate machine so that you can check config/program behavior on the original machine. When you are satisfied, either switch to the other machine or copy things back to the original. When one of my computers was starting to fall apart, I did this with an inexpensive used thinkpad. One more thing to consider: your ancient machine hardware may need to be maintenance/repais/replacement. A fully operational second (temporary) machine gives you a chance to try to do maintenace such as remove dust and cat hair carefully, check fans and replace them if needed, replace disks if older than 4 years, etc.