# using FreeBSD 8.2 for a production system



## vecihi (Nov 25, 2012)

hello,

I'm using FreeBSD 8.2 release for a production system with ZFS drivers... 

I didn't upgrade it to FreeBSD9 because of device driver compatibility reasons... Our device vendor has drivers only for "FreeBSD 8.2".

For a developer view: what are the disadvantages of using 8.2 related to "security / kernel / ZFS" performance? 

Or how can I track weakness/disadvantages of using FreeBSD 8.2 release?

I/O performance is very important for me.  Should I review FreeBSD 8.2 choice? 

Best regards.


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## Deleted member 30996 (Nov 25, 2012)

vecihi said:
			
		

> For a developer view: what are the disadvantages of using 8.2 related to "security / kernel / ZFS" performance?
> 
> Or how can I track weakness/disadvantages of using FreeBSD 8.2 release?
> 
> I/O performance is very important for me.  Should I review FreeBSD 8.2 choice?



FreeBSD 8.2-RELEASE reached End Of Life on July 31, 2012 and is no longer supported. You probably want to upgrade to FreeBSD 8.3.


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## throAU (Nov 26, 2012)

As above, 8.2 has holes in it, you really want to be running 8.3.  8.3 should be driver compatible with 8.2.


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## kpa (Nov 26, 2012)

throAU said:
			
		

> As above, 8.2 has holes in it, you really want to be running 8.3.  8.3 should be driver compatible with 8.2.



There is no such guarantee unfortunately. The kernel programming API may change between minor releases in a incompatible way. The ABI stability covers only userland programs.


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## fluca1978 (Nov 26, 2012)

The first to check is if the FreeBSD supports the drives with other kind of drivers. I mean, your vendor provides drivers, but the community could have developed other drivers to overtake the compatibility problem you describe, so check out if the hardware is compatible with later versions of FreeBSD and to which extent.

Having said that, it is quite clear that using an old version, and in particular a no more supported one, is a problem from the point of view of development because you risk to develop something that will not run in the future releases. 

The only suggestion could be to check, if possible, a later release on  the same (or similar) hardware. This of course is not always possible.


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## gkontos (Nov 26, 2012)

vecihi said:
			
		

> hello,
> 
> I'm using FreeBSD 8.2 release for a production system with ZFS drivers...



There is no such thing as ZFS drivers. 



			
				vecihi said:
			
		

> I didn't upgrade it to FreeBSD9 because of device driver compatibility reasons... Our device vendor has drivers only for "FreeBSD 8.2".



Please share some more information about the device in question.



			
				vecihi said:
			
		

> For a developer view: what are the disadvantages of using 8.2 related to "security / kernel / ZFS" performance?
> 
> Or how can I track weakness/disadvantages of using FreeBSD 8.2 release?
> 
> ...



FreeBSD 8.2-RELEASE is EOL as others have mentioned before. 

Aside for that, FreeBSD 8.2 + ZFS is a bad combination. Most of my servers at that time had been moved to 8.2-STABLE because of ZFS issues.


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## mamalos (Nov 26, 2012)

Additionally, you could ask your vendor to try to build the driver on a more recent version of FreeBSD. I suppose that there is a high chance that it'll compile on a 8.x system and maybe it'll compile on a 9.x system as well.


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