# Trouble updating 11.3



## slartibartfarst (Sep 8, 2020)

Greetings humanlings and earthloids
This evening I decided that it was time to update my systems only to find this nasty-gram.
src component not installed, skipped
Looking up update.FreeBSD.org mirrors... none found.
Fetching metadata signature for 11.3-RELEASE from update.FreeBSD.org... failed.
No mirrors remaining, giving up.

This may be because upgrading from this platform (amd64)
or release (11.3-RELEASE) is unsupported by freebsd-update. Only
platforms with Tier 1 support can be upgraded by freebsd-update.
See https://www.freebsd.org/platforms/index.html for more info.

When I checked version 11 is still supported and amd64 is Tier 1.  I have until the end of September before 11.3 is unsupported.  The plan was to update to 11.4 and then go to 12.1 but now I am stuck.  Up the proverbial creek without a paddle.  Why does freebsd-update not support 11.3 when everywhere I look it indicates that it is still supported, granted only for a few more weeks but I thought that I still had time.


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## richardtoohey2 (Sep 8, 2020)

Looks like it's working here, but maybe I stopped too early in the process ... got to get my skates on, though!

What exact command(s) are you trying?


```
# freebsd-update fetch
src component not installed, skipped
Looking up update.FreeBSD.org mirrors... 3 mirrors found.
Fetching metadata signature for 11.3-RELEASE from update2.freebsd.org... done.
Fetching metadata index... done.
Inspecting system... done.
Preparing to download files... done.
The following files will be added as part of updating to
11.3-RELEASE-p13:
/usr/lib/debug/usr/sbin/local-unbound-anchor.debug
/usr/lib/debug/usr/sbin/local-unbound-checkconf.debug
/usr/lib/debug/usr/sbin/local-unbound-control.debug
/usr/lib/debug/usr/sbin/local-unbound.debug
```


```
# freebsd-update upgrade -r 11.4-RELEASE
src component not installed, skipped
Looking up update.FreeBSD.org mirrors... 3 mirrors found.
Fetching metadata signature for 11.3-RELEASE from update4.freebsd.org... done.
Fetching metadata index... done.
Fetching 1 metadata patches. done.
Applying metadata patches... done.
Inspecting system... done.

The following components of FreeBSD seem to be installed:
kernel/generic world/base

The following components of FreeBSD do not seem to be installed:
kernel/generic-dbg world/base-dbg world/doc world/lib32 world/lib32-dbg

Does this look reasonable (y/n)? ^C
```
Anything in /etc/freebsd-update.conf or anything like that?

Looks more like it's failing to connect to the update server(s) rather than what the final message says?


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## chrbr (Sep 8, 2020)

Dear richardtoohey2,
the output of your system looks fine. It is normal that some things are not installed. May be you have unselected world/lib32 at the first installation. But if things are fine for you now it is ok. You should be safe to continue pressing "y". The last days there been issues contacting the update servers from time to time. But this has been no permanent problem. 

By the way, I have upgraded my boxes last week from FreeBSD 11.3-RELEASE directly to FREEBSD 12.1-RELEASE without any issues. It just takes one step more to reinstall the packages. My reason to upgrade to FreeBSD 12.1-RELEASE has been the availability of one package which did not build on the FreeBSD 11 versions.


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## richardtoohey2 (Sep 8, 2020)

Oops, sorry, my post was a bit misleading!

I was just saying I've got to get my skates on and upgrade a few machines, but was trying to point out to the OP that I can't see *his* issue. And that his issue seems to be more network related or maybe he's tweaked something in his config that's made freebsd-update unhappy.

So everything looks good for me when I'm ready to do the upgrade - but in my example above I was stopping short of doing the actual upgrades.

I've got all my other machines happily onto 12.1 - just got one production machine (and its development mirror) on 11.3 and I need to get a move on or I *will* encounter real problems.

Thank you!


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## slartibartfarst (Sep 8, 2020)

richardtoohey2 said:


> Oops, sorry, my post was a bit misleading!
> 
> I was just saying I've got to get my skates on and upgrade a few machines, but was trying to point out to the OP that I can't see *his* issue. And that his issue seems to be more network related or maybe he's tweaked something in his config that's made freebsd-update unhappy.
> 
> ...




Thanks for the reply.

My current estimate of the situation is that I should have paid more attention to the part about no mirrors being found.  I say that now because last night I had trouble sleeping so decided to give it another try and this time it worked.  2 am is always an interesting time when the wild things come out to play.  Got one host upgraded all the way to 12.1 but then when I went to upgrade another host I encountered the same problem and error message.  My best guess is that a lot of people are taking advantage of the holiday to do upgrades so the mirrors are too busy to serve the requests.  

It would be nice if there was some way to find out traffic levels on the mirrors but it would also be nice if I won the lottery.  : )

At least I have another few weeks to perform the upgrades before 11.3 is no longer supported.  It is my fault I waited so long to do the upgrades.  My only excuse is that I was working on another project and the holiday offered a chance to get it done.  

FreeBSD is a great OS and good luck with your upgrades.


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## chrbr (Sep 9, 2020)

Dear slartibartfarst,
I have found a possible solution as in post#4 of https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/re-use-downloads-for-freebsd-update.76916/. If you have upgraded one server already then - may be - you can copy all stuff from /var/db/freebsd-update/files to another machine. I am not sure if this is a good idea or insane. I have asked for the opinion of the community.

A FreeBSD-update server has been suggested, too. I am not sure if it supports binary upgrades. The question is not yet answered. If yes it is a more solid solution than copying files manually from A to B.


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## slartibartfarst (Sep 12, 2020)

chrbr said:


> Dear slartibartfarst,
> I have found a possible solution as in post#4 of https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/re-use-downloads-for-freebsd-update.76916/. If you have upgraded one server already then - may be - you can copy all stuff from /var/db/freebsd-update/files to another machine. I am not sure if this is a good idea or insane. I have asked for the opinion of the community.
> 
> A FreeBSD-update server has been suggested, too. I am not sure if it supports binary upgrades. The question is not yet answered. If yes it is a more solid solution than copying files manually from A to B.



Situation Update

Since I first asked about this, I have been attempting to update the host in order to upgrade it and all with no success.  Every day I have attempted multiple if not tens of multiple times to perform the update.  I use a script for the process and so last night changed the script so it captured the date and time of the attempt in a separate file.  I have been successfully using the script for at least 6 years.  This is the first major problem I have encountered.

Here is what I have so far:

gatekeeper:# cat attempts.txt
Sat Sep 12 06:00:55 CDT 2020
Sat Sep 12 10:55:09 CDT 2020
Sat Sep 12 11:25:00 CDT 2020
Sat Sep 12 11:26:02 CDT 2020
Sat Sep 12 11:52:25 CDT 2020

All to no avail.

The responses to the commands in the script are:

freebsd-update
src component not installed, skipped
Looking up update.FreeBSD.org mirrors... none found.
Fetching metadata signature for 11.3-RELEASE from update.FreeBSD.org... failed.
No mirrors remaining, giving up.

This may be because upgrading from this platform (amd64)
or release (11.3-RELEASE) is unsupported by freebsd-update. Only
platforms with Tier 1 support can be upgraded by freebsd-update.
See https://www.freebsd.org/platforms/index.html for more info.

If unsupported, FreeBSD must be upgraded by source.

freebsd-update install
src component not installed, skipped
No updates are available to install.
Run '/usr/sbin/freebsd-update fetch' first.


portsnap fetch
Looking up portsnap.FreeBSD.org mirrors... none found.
Fetching snapshot tag from portsnap.FreeBSD.org... failed.
No mirrors remaining, giving up.


portsnap update
Ports tree is already up to date.


pkg update
Updating FreeBSD repository catalogue...
pkg: http://pkg.FreeBSD.org/FreeBSD:11:amd64/quarterly/meta.txz: No address record
repository FreeBSD has no meta file, using default settings
pkg: http://pkg.FreeBSD.org/FreeBSD:11:amd64/quarterly/packagesite.txz: No address record
Unable to update repository FreeBSD
Error updating repositories!


pkg upgrade
Updating FreeBSD repository catalogue...
pkg: http://pkg.FreeBSD.org/FreeBSD:11:amd64/quarterly/meta.txz: No address record
repository FreeBSD has no meta file, using default settings
pkg: http://pkg.FreeBSD.org/FreeBSD:11:amd64/quarterly/packagesite.txz: No address record
Unable to update repository FreeBSD
Error updating repositories!


pkg clean
pkg: Repository FreeBSD missing. 'pkg update' required
pkg: No package database installed.  Nothing to do!
ending updates: Sat Sep 12 11:52:58 CDT 2020

And what I find even more galling is that I can update the 12.1 host that I did manage to update and upgrade.

It appears in some of the cases that needed files are missing but just for 11.3 and amd64 in addition to update mirrors cannot be found.  Something is not working the way that it should.


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## richardtoohey2 (Sep 12, 2020)

I'm upgrading an amd 11.3 to 11.4 right now - no issues here:


```
# freebsd-update upgrade -r 11.4-RELEASE
src component not installed, skipped
Looking up update.FreeBSD.org mirrors... 3 mirrors found.
Fetching metadata signature for 11.3-RELEASE from update2.freebsd.org... done.
Fetching metadata index... done.
Inspecting system... done.

The following components of FreeBSD seem to be installed:
kernel/generic world/base

The following components of FreeBSD do not seem to be installed:
kernel/generic-dbg world/base-dbg world/doc world/lib32 world/lib32-dbg

Does this look reasonable (y/n)? y

Fetching metadata signature for 11.4-RELEASE from update2.freebsd.org... done.
Fetching metadata index... done.
Fetching 1 metadata patches. done.
Applying metadata patches... done.
Fetching 1 metadata files... done.
Inspecting system... done.
Fetching files from 11.3-RELEASE for merging... done.
Preparing to download files... done.
Fetching 8740 patches.....10....20....30....40....50....60....70....80....90....100....110....120....130....140....150....160....170....180....190....200....210....220....230....240....250....260....270....280....290....300....310....320....330....340....350....360....370....380....390....400....410....420....430..
```

I'll update this post when the full upgrade is done on this machine - but it does work past the point you are having issues with.

No address record means your networking/DNS are not working (or upstream from you.)

What does ping give you e.g.


```
% ping pkg.FreeBSD.org
PING pkgmir.geo.FreeBSD.org (149.20.1.201): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 149.20.1.201: icmp_seq=0 ttl=51 time=145.093 ms
64 bytes from 149.20.1.201: icmp_seq=1 ttl=51 time=144.842 ms
64 bytes from 149.20.1.201: icmp_seq=2 ttl=51 time=144.839 ms
64 bytes from 149.20.1.201: icmp_seq=3 ttl=51 time=144.535 ms
```

EDIT - didn't note my start time - but all done within 30 minutes.  Didn't get prompted to rebuild/re-install any ports/packages so that saved some time.

Before:

```
FreeBSD 11.3-RELEASE-p13 (GENERIC) #0: Tue Sep  1 06:56:51 UTC 2020
...
%uname -a
FreeBSD something.here.co.nz 11.3-RELEASE-p13 FreeBSD 11.3-RELEASE-p13 #0: Tue Sep  1 06:56:51 UTC 2020     root@amd64-builder.daemonology.net:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/GENERIC  amd64
% freebsd-version 
11.3-RELEASE-p13
```

After following instructions:

```
FreeBSD 11.4-RELEASE-p3 (GENERIC) #0: Tue Sep  1 08:22:33 UTC 2020
...
% uname -a
FreeBSD something.here.co.nz 11.4-RELEASE-p3 FreeBSD 11.4-RELEASE-p3 #0: Tue Sep  1 08:22:33 UTC 2020     root@amd64-builder.daemonology.net:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/GENERIC  amd64
% freebsd-version 
11.4-RELEASE-p3
```


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## richardtoohey2 (Sep 12, 2020)

Maybe I'm typing too much.  Short version - these:


slartibartfarst said:


> Looking up update.FreeBSD.org mirrors... none found.





slartibartfarst said:


> Looking up portsnap.FreeBSD.org mirrors... none found.





slartibartfarst said:


> pkg: http://pkg.FreeBSD.org/FreeBSD:11:amd64/quarterly/meta.txz: No address record


All mean there's a networking/DNS issue.  Your machine cannot find or connect to any server hosting FreeBSD updates - OS or ports.

You need to find out why this host can't connect.  Once you have resolved (poor pun?) the network/DNS issues then everything should work.


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## richardtoohey2 (Sep 13, 2020)

Three out of my four machines needing to upgrade from amd64 11.3 to 11.4 done as per instructions here: https://www.freebsd.org/releases/11.4R/installation.html

(Last machine I need to do is production so will watch these others for a few days before doing the upgrade to the final machine that needs it.)

None of them asked for ports/packages to be updated.

No issues; faster machines took < 30 minutes but the slower one was nearer an hour.

They all used update2.freebsd.org and I can ping that:


```
# ping update2.freebsd.org
PING update2.freebsd.org (204.15.11.117): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 204.15.11.117: icmp_seq=0 ttl=49 time=154.336 ms
64 bytes from 204.15.11.117: icmp_seq=1 ttl=49 time=154.495 ms
```

/etc/freebsd-update.conf - don't think I've ever touched it:


```
ServerName update.FreeBSD.org
```


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## slartibartfarst (Sep 13, 2020)

Now I have to figure out why DNS was not working but the update/upgrade is working now.

Thank you for taking the time to point me in the right direction.


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## slartibartfarst (Sep 13, 2020)

slartibartfarst said:


> Now I have to figure out why DNS was not working but the update/upgrade is working now.
> 
> Thank you for taking the time to point me in the right direction.



One more thing

On the Freebsd.org home page, the list of shortcuts on the top right-hand side, FAQ, ports and Handbook all display a custom 404 Page not Found error.  Mailing Lists and Reporting Problems work just fine.


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## richardtoohey2 (Sep 13, 2020)

slartibartfarst said:


> On the Freebsd.org home page, the list of shortcuts on the top right-hand side, FAQ, ports and Handbook all display a custom 404 Page not Found error


All working for me here.

Glad you've got the upgrade working - remember the old maxim https://www.cyberciti.biz/humour/a-haiku-about-dns/


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## slartibartfarst (Sep 13, 2020)

Are you familiar with the Tao of Programming by Geoffrey James?  It would fit right in.

In the style of the original 老子   道德经


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## richardtoohey2 (Sep 13, 2020)

I needed some help from Google Translate for some of that!    

Not encountered that book before, but have stumbled on the Tao of Network Security Monitoring (well, more the author's website than the book).

Too many books, too little time (well, too many other distractions!)


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