# Is it possible to roll back a major upgrade with freebsd-update?



## Juanitou (Nov 7, 2013)

Hi! I would like to test the latest 10.0-BETA3 by upgrading my actual 9.2-RELEASE. Iâ€™ve always updated/upgraded my system through freebsd-update and never found a problem, but Iâ€™ve never done a major upgrade.

Iâ€™m a bit concerned about the compatibility of my old computer with this version and I would like to have the possibility of rolling back to 9.2.

Iâ€™ve carefully read the freebsd-update(8) man page as well as the FreeBSD Update handbook section and Iâ€™m not sure about the possibility to roll back such an upgrade. From the manual (my highlighting):

```
The command can be any one of the following:
...
     install      Install the most recently fetched [B]updates or upgrade[/B].
     rollback     Uninstall the most recently installed [B]updates[/B].
```

Does this imply that `freebsd-update rollback` would not work for major upgrades?

Thanks in advance!


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## ShelLuser (Nov 7, 2013)

That would be my interpretation as well. In general the best way to undo an OS upgrade is by restoring a previously made backup.


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## ph0enix (Nov 7, 2013)

I wouldn't risk it regardless of what the documentation says/means.  If you have a spare hard drive around, you could just throw in into the machine and do a new install to see if 10 works on it.


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## Juanitou (Nov 8, 2013)

Thanks for your advice. I have decided to follow the release notes and upgrade through freebsd-update. Some errors appeared after the first reboot (no sshd, no smbd, no wlanâ€¦) but restarting the services seem to have resolved the issue. Iâ€™m now happily rebuilding all the ports, I hope all will be well, then Iâ€™ll try the WITH_NEW_XORG switch and the new AMD GPUs kernel-modesetting support, which was the main reason for trying the upgrade, since it not worked at first.

In the meantime, I have written a message to Colin Percival concerning the somewhat ambiguous content of the man page, weâ€™ll see.


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## Juanitou (Nov 19, 2013)

For the record, I tested updating an spare VMware 9.2 system to 10.0-BETA3 then directly roll back and it worked! freebsd-update did it perfectly. Mind you, updating the system AND the ports then rolling back will certainly not work as seamlessly: my system is broken now, but hey, research has its risksâ€¦


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