# Upgrade 7.1-RELEASE to 9.3-RELEASE



## cybercoke (Nov 6, 2014)

Hi _g_uys,

This is the first time that *I*'m needing to upgrade a FreeBSD version, and *I* need some help on how to do this using freebsd-update.

Can you expert guys help me out on a how to_?_

Thank you very much.


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## SirDice (Nov 6, 2014)

https://www.freebsd.org/releases/9.3R/installation.html#upgrade


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## cybercoke (Nov 6, 2014)

Thank you SirDice, but can *I* upgrade directly from FreeBSD 7.1-RELEASE to FreeBSD 9.3-RELEASE? If *I* do that on a firewall running IPFW, after a reboot, will it act like a firewall normally? I ask this because *I*'m 1,000 km away from the server. Thank you.


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## pkubaj (Nov 6, 2014)

Since 7.x was already unsupported when 9.3 was being released, I suggest upgrading first to 7.4, then to 8.4, and then to 9.3.


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## Uniballer (Nov 6, 2014)

I did an upgrade from 7.4 straight to 9.1-RC3 some time back.  There will be a few more problems going from 7.1 to 9.3 (e.g. the auditdistd user account needed for world installation sometime after 9.1-RELEASE was out), but probably nothing insurmountable with a few well-chosen configuration hacks.

Make a good backup before you start hacking or you might break something.


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## SirDice (Nov 7, 2014)

Also remember the command `freebsd-update rollback`. In case things get botched up it may be the only way to get the system back in any usable state.

As this is a remote system, make sure you have console access. Just in case it fails to boot or sshd(8) doesn't want to work.


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