# Failed rollback from FreeBSD 11.3 to 11.2



## MattS (Jan 7, 2020)

I run FreeBSD as a KVM guest. Due to a bug in FreeBSD 11.3+ that breaks the NIC, I'm stuck on 11.2. I thought I could work around it by passing through a physical NIC, but the same issue is present. When I rolled back, the kernel went back to 11.2,  but none of the system files were restored, I assume because 11.2 went EoL. My previous rollback in October went fine.

Anyway, I'm currently stuck in a state of limbo, is there a way I can repair 11.2 to a known good state?


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## SirDice (Jan 8, 2020)

It's a virtual machine, why didn't you make a snapshot of it _before_ you attempted to upgrade? That's one of the major perks of having a VM. 



MattS said:


> When I rolled back, the kernel went back to 11.2, but none of the system files were restored, I assume because 11.2 went EoL.


That has nothing to do with it. The backup that's used for the rollback is stored locally. 



MattS said:


> Anyway, I'm currently stuck in a state of limbo, is there a way I can repair 11.2 to a known good state?


Not easily but you could boot from an 11.2 install media, extract the various archives in /usr/freebsd-dist and overwrite your system. That should bring it back to a "plain" 11.2-RELEASE version. When you have it running again, turn off the VM and make a snapshot before attempting to upgrade again.


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## MattS (Jan 8, 2020)

I do have a full disk image backups and daily backups of other stuff, but unfortunately snapshots aren't an option on my current host OS. I just got a little over confident (lazy). Was just looking for the lowest effort recovery. Thanks!


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