# updating FreeBSD from air gapped system



## bakernet (Dec 12, 2010)

Hi,

How do I update a FreeBSD system that is nnot connected to the internet ? I undrstand I can do this from DVD but what about updating the ports ?

Thanks


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## DutchDaemon (Dec 12, 2010)

Since your question deals primarily with ports I moved the topic to a more appropriate forum.

Do you have a machine that _is_ connected to the Internet around? That will make things easier, certainly if it's also a FreeBSD machine (so you can build or download packages on it and transfer them to the off-line machine).


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## fronclynne (Dec 12, 2010)

A thumbdrive with the sources of the version you want to move to would be all you really need.  Though you might have trouble going from 4.11 to 8.1 that way.

For the ports you have to decide how you want to upgrade and proceed from there: from source or pre-built packages.


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## bakernet (Dec 13, 2010)

I do have a machine that is connected to the internet.

Could you provide instructions for both updating from source and from pre-build packages ?


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## DutchDaemon (Dec 13, 2010)

ports(7) should give you some ideas, esp. the make package and make-package-recursive targets. These packages can then be transferred and installed (with pkg_add(1) _package.tbz_). You'll need a FreeBSD machine with the same OS version to build the packages though. There are several scenarios, with build jails, mounting NFS-exported filesystems, thumb drives. There have been plenty of postings in this sub-forum about all of them. Instead of making packages, you can also download the distfiles (source tarballs) you will need, using targets like make fetch-list, make fetch-recursive, and make fetch-recursive-list. No easy answers here, it's all highly customisable in many different ways.


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