Upgrading FreeBSD 9.0 to 9.1 using freebsd-update

Here a quick outline of upgrading FreeBSD from 9.0 to 9.1 on a Soekris 4801 i had installed just two days ago to be a small encrypted fileserver.

First a word of caution: Backup all your data; something we always want to do before doing system maintenance like this, especially when on a machine without physical access.

Second – this Document gives all the details and is the official resource. In addition to these Release Notes, they may provide valuable clues as to what we may need to watch out for when upgrading our systems.

To update our system, we will be using freebsd-update, a great piece of software that fetches and installs binary updates to FreeBSD.

To get started, ensure that your current system is up to date; a change was recently made to freebsd-update(8) (Errata Notice FreeBSD-EN-12:01.freebsd-update) which is needed in order to upgrade to FreeBSD 9.1-RELEASE.

# freebsd-update fetch
# freebsd-update install

If any updates where installed above – reboot your system before continuing.

Now the freebsd-update(8) utility can fetch bits belonging to 9.1-RELEASE. During this process freebsd-update(8) will ask for help in merging configuration files. If you are upgrading from FreeBSD 7.X or 8.X – consult the official installation document.

# freebsd-update upgrade -r 9.1-RELEASE
# freebsd-update install

The system must now be rebooted with the newly installed kernel before the non-kernel components are updated.

# shutdown -r now

After rebooting, freebsd-update(8) needs to be run again to install the new userland components:

# freebsd-update install

At this point, users of systems being upgraded from FreeBSD 8.2-RELEASE or earlier will be prompted by freebsd-update(8) to rebuild all third-party applications (e.g., ports installed from the ports tree) due to updates in system libraries.

After updating installed third-party applications (and again, only if freebsd-update(8) printed a message indicating that this was necessary), run freebsd-update(8) again so that it can delete the old (no longer used) system libraries:

# freebsd-update install

Finally, reboot into 9.1-RELEASE

# shutdown -r now

Summary

On my Soekris 4801 which i can access only via console or network, the update went quite smoothly and i can report no issues as of now. Perfect!

Comments

  1. Great article, thanks…

  2. Update installs default kernel, so I have to reinstall it with my options.

  3. LayerSpeed Web Hosting says:

    We upgrade today FreeBSD 9.0 to 9.1 using guidance from handbook of FreeBSD. After that we have problem for adding user. We can add new user and can see the user added to /etc/passwd and /etc/master.passwd but somehow system could not see this user. We must run pwd_mkdb /etc/master.passwd for sync and now its run without problem.

    thank you

  4. Hi, this weekend is pleasant in favor of me, since this occasion i am reading
    this great educational paragraph here at my home.

  5. Oh yeah what exactly are your ideas on possessing diverse landing
    webpages for Fb and POF? Offer you countdown scripts and contacting out
    consumer place is shit that works on POF but will not get approved on facebook

  6. thanks, i just read all the suggestions and I am going to
    start my gain bodyweight program!

  7. This can be the appropriate blog for anyone who must
    research out out concerning this topic.
    You recognize a great deal its virtually arduous to
    argue along with you (not that
    I genuinely would need…HaHa). You without doubt put
    a new spin on the topic thats been prepared about for years.

    Great things, basically fantastic!

Speak Your Mind

*