Upgrade to FreeBSD 11.3 experiences

IT_Architect

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I've only done new installations with FreeBSD, but never an upgrade. I have a server with 11.2 and want to upgraded it to 11.3. Any pointers you can give me would be appreciated.

Thanks!
 
It is really easy. I even managed to upgrade a FreeBSD 7.0 machine up to 12 remotely. Major upgrades (for example 10.x to 11.y) are more complicated because it requires updating all ports and software as well. Minor upgrades (like in your case) are "peace of cake" and it's all about one restart.

Assuming that you are not with custom kernel and stuff like that, the upgrades are done with the utility "freebsd-update". What you must do is:

Code:
freebsd-update upgrade -r 11.3-RELEASE

It will loop through lots of checks and will ask you if you want to continue (it will list you what it will do and will ask you if it "looks reasonable"). After that it will fetch a long list of patches - few thousands to be more precise. It takes some time.

Next there may be some minor issues with some default configuration files - if the utility finds such, it will ask you to open them in the editor "vi". Inside such files it will list to you what the current situation inside the file is and what the new default is supposed to be. Read carefully there and delete whatever is not needed (whole line delete is "dd"). Save the file and quit with ":wq"

When you are ready it will exit and it will be ready to install. To install it make:

Code:
freebsd-update install

Wait for it... and when it says that it's done, you must reboot the machine:

Code:
reboot

When you login again, do again:

Code:
freebsd-update install

And you are done. That's it.

I updated two different servers lots of times. Never had any issues.

P.S. If you are not using the OpenSSL from base but the one from ports, you have no worries. Usually that's the case because the DA installation recommends doing that. You can check that in /etc/make.conf. If you use OpenSSL from ports, then you will have there:

Code:
DEFAULT_VERSIONS+=ssl=openssl

If you are unsure, you can rebuild the ports and DA packages that depend on OpenSSL too. Usually this is NOT needed when doing minor upgrades but sometimes people do it "just in case", because minor upgrades also update the base OpenSSL to newer version (it's still a minor OpenSSL upgrade, not a major one, so rebuilding is not really necessarily).
 
Last edited:
You can check that in /etc/make.conf. If you use OpenSSL from ports, then you will have there:
Code:
DEFAULT_VERSIONS+=ssl=openssl
If you are unsure, you can rebuild the ports and DA packages that depend on OpenSSL too. Usually this is NOT needed when doing minor upgrades but sometimes people do it "just in case", because minor upgrades also update the base OpenSSL to newer version (it's still a minor OpenSSL upgrade, not a major one, so rebuilding is not really necessarily).
There was no make.conf after the install at all. I added one:
Code:
## Server options 
## (headless, no GUI, no X11, no sound, ..)
WITHOUT_X11=YES
WITHOUT_CUPS=yes
WITHOUT_FONTCONFIG=yes
NOPORTDOCS=yes
WITHOUT_MODULES = sound linux
OPTIONS_UNSET= CUPS NLS DOCS

Thanks!
 
It is really easy. I even managed to upgrade a FreeBSD 7.0 machine up to 12 remotely. Major upgrades (for example 10.x to 11.y) are more complicated because it requires updating all ports and software as well. Minor upgrades (like in your case) are "peace of cake" and it's all about one restart.
Are you using FreeBSD with 12.0? What are the pros and cons of 12.0 with DA?
 
I am not going to update to 12.0 yet. Most of the websites on my server depend on PHP 5.x (they are built on old custom CMS which uses lots of old libraries). While I may be able to use the older OpenSSL from ports and everything should be OK, I don't wish to be the one who experiment with it. The base OpenSSL in FreeBSD 12 is the newer one and PHP 5.x do not work with it..
 
Most of the websites on my server depend on PHP 5.x...the base OpenSSL in FreeBSD 12 is the newer one and PHP 5.x do not work with it..
There we go. I didn't know that. That's huge for me as well. Thanks tons for your reply. I think 11 is going to have a lot longer life than FreeBSD people expect. There's nothing wrong with that either. The way things are, FreeBSD lifetimes are approaching that of an adult Mayfly.
 
Do not get me wrong here. You can (and you usually do) use OpenSSL from ports. So in theory it should work fine when you install older OpenSSL through the ports system. I just don't have the time to test it yet.
 
After updating my system from FreeBSD 9.1 to FreeBSD 11.3-RELEASE-p13
Many options in DIRECTADMIN do not work correctly
DirectAdmin Version: 1.62.6
 
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