# Upgrade of 6.4



## fr1 (Jun 1, 2015)

Hello,

I have got a 6.4 version. I've downloaded latest source version using svn.

I've made 
	
	



```
# make buildworld
# make buildkernel
# make installkernel KODIR=/boot/testkernel
# nextboot -k /boot/testkernel
```
But I couldn't boot testkernel:
	
	



```
ad0: FreeBSD check1 failed
```
 among others.

Is it a good strategy to try one by one download source of 7.1, 7.2, ...  and compile (without `# make buildworld`, using `make kernel-toolchain` as described in /usr/src/UPDATING)?

Can have the number of version of compiler impact on success of booting kernel?


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## SirDice (Jun 1, 2015)

I wouldn't try to upgrade it, it's too old. Backup the data and start with a fresh, supported, version.


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## fr1 (Jun 1, 2015)

SirDice said:


> I wouldn't try to upgrade it, it's too old. Backup the data and start with a fresh, supported, version.


I've tried that, but I couldn't boot from USB stick because of low memory (even with `mem=64M` boot parameter).

RAM: 512 MB


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## pkubaj (Jun 1, 2015)

You can upgrade via freebsd-update(). I think you could upgrade even to 10.1 but with steps like 6.4->7.4->8.4->9.3->10.1.  Or you can do a clean install. If 512MB is enough, FreeBSD needs 24MB for installation. If you can't boot USB, boot from CD/DVD.


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## SirDice (Jun 1, 2015)

FreeBSD 6 was End-of-Life long before development started on freebsd-update(8), so it's not supported.


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## DutchDaemon (Jun 1, 2015)

I've tried several times, but there really is no way out of FreeBSD 6. Several frameworks have changed, port builds fail, upgrade strategies fail, source compiles fail; the changes are really insurmountable. Extract payload and start with a new installation.


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## pkubaj (Jun 1, 2015)

SirDice said:


> FreeBSD 6 was End-of-Life long before development started on freebsd-update(8), so it's not supported.


freebsd-update(8) is available since 6.3: https://www.freebsd.org/releases/6.3R/announce.html



DutchDaemon said:


> I've tried several times, but there really is no way out of FreeBSD 6. Several frameworks have changed, port builds fail, upgrade strategies fail, source compiles fail; the changes are really insurmountable. Extract payload and start with a new installation.


Is it not even possible by just removing all ports and upgrading to 7.4, 8.4, 9.3 and then to 10.1, and only then install the required ports?


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## DutchDaemon (Jun 1, 2015)

IIRC freebsd-update was available as an add-on (port). And it won't install now, unless you have the ports tree and the distribution files of back then somewhere. And still, the backend of freebsd-update has probably changed significantly in the meantime. I don't think it will even offer upgrade paths to end-of-6, and 7.


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## pkubaj (Jun 1, 2015)

DutchDaemon said:


> IIRC freebsd-update was available as an add-on (port). And it won't install now, unless you have the ports tree and the distribution files of back then somewhere. And still, the backend of freebsd-update has probably changed significantly in the meantime. I don't think it will even offer upgrade paths to end-of-6, and 7.


Altough I've used FreeBSD only since 8.0, I'm pretty sure it was available as a port before 6.3, since there're available upgrades even to 5.5 on http://update.freebsd.org. So I think that it's possible to upgrade to 7.4.


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## DutchDaemon (Jun 1, 2015)

Well, contact the OP by PM and help him out. We're looking forward to a section in the HowTo sub-forum.


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## Uniballer (Jun 1, 2015)

Don't forget, hardware matters.  Hey OP, what hardware are you running on the system you're trying to upgrade?

IIRC 6.4 GENERIC i386 would boot on a system without an APIC, e.g. a 486.  This didn't work anymore on 7.x GENERIC or later (because it defaults to SMP, which requires APIC), although I'm pretty sure even 10.1 can be built for a 486 if you configure it for NOSMP NOAPIC.  Thread link: FreeBSD 7, 8, 9, 10 etc. on 486, Pentium, K6, etc.


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## Terry_Kennedy (Jun 2, 2015)

DutchDaemon said:


> I've tried several times, but there really is no way out of FreeBSD 6. Several frameworks have changed, port builds fail, upgrade strategies fail, source compiles fail; the changes are really insurmountable. Extract payload and start with a new installation.


Agreed. Between early 2011 and early 2013 enough things were changed that it was no longer possible to successfully update the base system or ports on a FreeBSD 6.4 system. Those dates coincide with the EoL of FreeBSD 6 and FreeBSD 7, respectively. 

If this system is used in a business, it should be possible to make a case for newer hardware, simply based on power savings and ease of obtaining spare parts and/or a service agreement. Even if a brand new system is out of the question due to price, you should still be able to find a much newer system on eBay or other sites selling used equipment.

If it is a system for personal use, there isn't as much economic incentive for newer hardware, but you still need to consider what happens when the existing system breaks.

In either case, having a second system means you can install a supported FreeBSD release and the necessary ports without any downtime on the existing server, and you can migrate services (web server, email server, etc.) and their data one-at-a-time or in small manageable groups, until there is nothing left running on the old server and it can be decommissioned.


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## pkubaj (Jun 2, 2015)

Well, if uptime for the whole time is required, then OP might want to use misc/compat6x, which enables to use ports compiled for 6.x on newer releases.


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## Terry_Kennedy (Jun 2, 2015)

pkubaj said:


> Well, if uptime for the whole time is required, then OP might want to use misc/compat6x, which enables to use ports compiled for 6.x on newer releases.


The issue with that is that many ports have received security updates since they stopped building on FreeBSD 6.x. So simply bringing any binaries over from that release is likely to introduce security issues on the newer release. And since those binaries won't be registered with pkg(8), the nightly pkg-audit(8) run won't inform the user about them.


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## pkubaj (Jun 2, 2015)

Terry_Kennedy said:


> The issue with that is that many ports have received security updates since they stopped building on FreeBSD 6.x. So simply bringing any binaries over from that release is likely to introduce security issues on the newer release. And since those binaries won't be registered with pkg(8), the nightly pkg-audit(8) run won't inform the user about them.


Yes, that's why I would first upgrade to 10.1 via 7.4, 8.4 and 9.3 and only then upgrade all ports. The installed ports have been vulnerable for so long that a few more days don't make a difference.


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## gkontos (Jun 2, 2015)

Even if you manage to upgrade such an old system, the man hours spent will be significant more than backing up data and configuration files and performing a clean install.


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## Terry_Kennedy (Jun 2, 2015)

Why





pkubaj said:


> Yes, that's why I would first upgrade to 10.1 via 7.4, 8.4 and 9.3 and only then upgrade all ports. The installed ports have been vulnerable for so long that a few more days don't make a difference.


Why go through all of the intermediate steps instead of doing a new install, either (preferably) on a new box or on the existing one (after making and verifying a backup and perhaps on a different HDD)? That will ensure that there aren't multiple versions of (old) libraries around, which can cause all sorts of "interesting" issues.

There are enough entries in /usr/ports/UPDATING documenting "gotchas" when updating a port, even when the base system version hasn't changed, that it is quite possible to get stuck in a situation during a major version update where you can neither go forward or roll back.  Just to pick some common ports, the newest Apache on FreeBSD 6.4 was 2.2 (which may not even build), the newest Perl was 5.16,  PHP was 5.3, and MySQL was 5.5. And that's from a ports tree at 6.4's EoL - the original poster likely has much older versions installed.


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## fr1 (Jun 5, 2015)

Thank to all for posts. I try 9.2 install now, but it has frozen.


```
Archive extraction: base.txz 9 %, overall progress 1%
```

Is there any other solution than hard reset ?


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## Terry_Kennedy (Jun 5, 2015)

fr1 said:


> Thank to all for posts. I try 9.2 install now, but it has frozen.


Is this on the same system, or another box? I ask mostly because hardware you find laying around may not be fully functional.

Also, why use 9.x? 9 was sort of an intermediate stage between FreeBSD 8 and FreeBSD 10 (while that sounds obvious, there are a number of things that first appeared in 9 that only became fully-functional in 10). Also, FreeBSD 9.2 is already End-of-Life.



> _Archive extraction: base.txz 9 %, overall progress 1%_
> 
> Is there any other solution than hard reset ?


Probably not. You could try a Control-T to see if the process is responsive at all. You may find more info on one of the other console screens (press Alt-F1, Alt-F2, etc. to cycle between them). Post anything you discover here. It would also be helpful to know if it was a CD, DVD, or memstick image that you booted from, and if you verified the signature after downloading it.


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## fr1 (Jun 5, 2015)

Terry_Kennedy said:


> Is this on the same system, or another box? I ask mostly because hardware you find laying around may not be fully functional.
> 
> Also, why use 9.x? 9 was sort of an intermediate stage between FreeBSD 8 and FreeBSD 10 (while that sounds obvious, there are a number of things that first appeared in 9 that only became fully-functional in 10). Also, FreeBSD 9.2 is already End-of-Life.
> 
> ...



It's memstick, I didn't verified it. Ctrl-T, Ctrl-Alt-F1, ... -F9, etc., Alt-F1, ...-F9, ... etc. - nothing is working.
But thank you for new tricks


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## gkontos (Jun 5, 2015)

I have not done an installation on a machine with 512MB or RAM for years. But I don't think that should be a problem. Try using FreeBSD 10.1-RELEASE and make sure you choose the i386 version on such an old machine unless your processor is 64bit. 

As a side note, I do keep around a server, (BEAST) that I bought around 2005 and during the years I have upgraded the processor and memory to 4GB. Now, it is running 10.1-STABLE


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## fr1 (Jun 5, 2015)

gkontos said:


> I have not done an installation on a machine with 512MB or RAM for years. But I don't think that should be a problem. Try using FreeBSD 10.1-RELEASE and make sure you choose the i386 version on such an old machine unless your processor is 64bit.
> 
> As a side note, I do keep around a server, (BEAST) that I bought around 2005 and during the years I have upgraded the processor and memory to 4GB. Now, it is running 10.1-STABLE



I'm running latest Ubuntu (15.04) on that machine, *BSD should require less memory. It's old machine, supposed to "work until die", without upgrading.

I've verified md5 and tried 9.3, 10.0 (i386, same like my CPU) but installation has frozen too.
Installation of 10.1 has completed without error, but anything has been written to target disc. There were some GEOM_... errors during boot of installator.


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