# freebsd-update upgrade best practices



## alief (Dec 7, 2008)

Hi all,

I want to ask, what's the best practices for upgrading major version of FreeBSD with freebsd-update ? (e.g. 6.x -> 7.0).

And what method do you prefer, freebsd-update, make buildworld, or upgrading with installation CD ?


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## kamikaze (Dec 7, 2008)

I would run the update. Afterwards I would install the compat layer for the old system (e.g. misc/compat6x) and run:

# cd /usr/src
# make delete-old
# make delete-old-libs

Then I'd run pkg_libchk from the sysutils/bsdadminscripts port, which would create a list of ports that need rebuilding.

# pkg_libchk -qo > rebuild

Afterwards I'd rebuild the detected packages with my favourite update tool. E.g.:

# xargs -o < rebuild portmaster -D

After successfully rebuilding all these packages (which is still less than rebuilding all packages), you can safely deinstall the compat package.


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## cajunman4life (Dec 7, 2008)

Looks like a good method to follow rather than rebuilding all ports. I'll try it on the next major upgrade I have.


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## kamikaze (Dec 8, 2008)

I coded the script pkg_libchk for the upgrade from 6.x to 7.x and it is much more mature, now, than it was back then. It even has SMP support and is working very reliable. Only jdks and OpenOffice yield some false positives, because they are linked to libraries that don't exist (odbc), or which they have to locate themselves (libjawt.so).

Well, I hope it will work for you guys as well as it does for me.


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## jleal2003 (Dec 9, 2008)

I would strongly prefer , backing up all data and config files , and then make a FRESH FBSD 7 install!!!!

i DO NOT like updating Fbsd from one version to an other!


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## jleal2003 (Dec 9, 2008)

i think also you would spend less time doing that way!


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## kamikaze (Dec 9, 2008)

I doubt it. For me even a major update is not such a large process. The most time consuming part is the updating of packages and that runs automatically, most of the time.


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