# beadm - current snapshot



## s0ke (Sep 24, 2015)

I'm fairly new to FreeBSD so forgive my ignorance.

I am trying to take a snapshot of my current environment which is 9.2 and then upgrade to 9.3.  I would like to use that snapshot as a boot environment in case things go sideways.  However it doesn't appear my current setup supports boot environments.


```
root@san:~ # beadm list
ERROR: This system is not configured for boot environments

root@san:~ # zpool list
NAME    SIZE  ALLOC   FREE    CAP  DEDUP  HEALTH  ALTROOT
zroot    29T  13.4T  15.6T    46%  1.60x  ONLINE  -

root@san:~ # zfs list
NAME                      USED  AVAIL  REFER  MOUNTPOINT
zroot                    10.5T  11.3T  62.8K  none
zroot/9.2                11.4G  38.6G  7.87G  /
zroot/9.2/tmp             362M  38.6G   362M  /tmp
zroot/9.2/var            1.47G  38.6G  1.24G  /var
zroot/demo                 10.1G  1014G  10.1G  /dpool/demo
zroot/historical-bacula  7.32T  1.68T  7.32T  /dpool/historical-bacula
zroot/home                787G  1.23T   787G  /home/MINE
zroot/other_shares        284G   740G   284G  /dpool/other_shares
zroot/proxmox            1.99T  1.01T  1.99T  /dpool/proxmox
zroot/rancid             62.8K   200G  62.8K  /dpool/rancid
zroot/restore            62.8K  2.00T  62.8K  /dpool/restore
zroot/shares              107G  1.90T   107G  /dpool/shares
```

What is the best way to convert this to a be supported environment?

Thanks


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## hukadan (Sep 24, 2015)

Well, the easiest way is to reinstall everything. The Thread howto-freebsd-zfs-madness.31662 details the steps to install a system compatible with beadm(1). If you do not want to reinstall your system, you can modify your layout but it is a journey to hell (http://dan.langille.org/2015/03/11/modifying-a-zfs-root-system-to-a-beadm-layout/ just to give you an idea) and if you are new to FreeBSD, this is certainly not the way to go.

Now, as far as I understood, you want to update your system and then go back to the previous environment if things go wrong. A simple snapshot/rollback scheme should suffice in that case. Before updating, you take a snapshot of your entire system. Then you update. If things go sideways, you just rollback to the snapshot you just took.


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## s0ke (Sep 24, 2015)

That's correct.  I was looking at using the snapshot as an alternate boot environment.  But if I can just get away with doing a ZFS snapshot that should suffice.  Its only to a minor release from 9.2 to 9.3.


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## hukadan (Sep 24, 2015)

You should read the Chapter 19.4 of the Handbook before going further and particularly the paragraph Managing Snapshots.


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## s0ke (Sep 24, 2015)

Thank you very much for the help.  I have also been looking at 19.2.


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## ondra_knezour (Sep 24, 2015)

Modifying a ZFS root system to a beadm layout


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## s0ke (Sep 24, 2015)

It does look like an endeavor.  I have spun up a VM to test the process and hukadan is right it's a journey to hell.  Seeing how this is a mission critical SAN and in order to rollback the changes we would have to boot using a live CD anyway.  I think I may just skip the beadm layout step for now.  Thanks


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