# 8.3 Jails on 8.4 Host



## ethoms (Apr 23, 2013)

I have just finished migrating all our services to FreeBSD jails. This allows me to re-install our main server and transfer the jails across to the new installation. The existing temporary server is FreeBSD 8.3, all the jails where created on that installation using `ezjail`.

My question is, can I install 8.4 when it is released and transfer my 8.3 jails to it? I never had any problems with my traditional (no ezjail) 8.2 jails running on a 8.3 host system, until I had time to rebuild them using ezjails. But this time I don't want to take risks.

There is too much work and risk for me to rebuild the jails again on 8.4, I just got everything working great. So if unless somebody can tell me "yeah, no problem running mismatched jail/host versions" then I will just use tried and tested FreeBSD 8.3.

The only I would possibly benefit from in 8.4 is security fixes/enhancements and ZFS enhancements. Is it worth it?


----------



## SirDice (Apr 23, 2013)

It's not recommended of course but running an 8.3 jail on an 8.4 host shouldn't pose any problems.


----------



## Remington (Apr 23, 2013)

It shouldn't be a problem but you can do a test in virtualbox with similar setups as your production server and do ezjail upgrade to be sure nothing breaks.  Be sure to back up everything first.


----------



## ethoms (Apr 24, 2013)

Thanks guys, gave me some ideas. I think I'll just use 8.3 to start with, 8.4 not out yet and I need to get moving. I haven't tried `ezjail upgrade` yet, I think I'll do it in a testing installation first. I don't have much experience with FreeBSD upgrades at all. I usually just do a fresh install and redo from scratch, except carrying over key configuration files. But this time that is not possible since there's just too much to do. I guess that's a bad trait I've acquired from my Windows days.

In fact, not having to update all the time is one of the reasons I've grown to love FreeBSD. From a security perspective, that's not good. But it can just take up so much time an energy keeping everything up to date.

I do like the way it's all done in Debian, don't have to think or worry too much about it. But then the control FreeBSD brings is worth it. I must check out this PKGNG thingy, it sounds good. But I think I'll end up sticking to ports.


----------



## kpa (Apr 24, 2013)

Ports and PKGNG are not mutually exclusive but complementary. Ports are installed/registered as packages and if you use PKGNG the packages get registered as PKGNG packages.


----------



## SirDice (Apr 26, 2013)

PKGNG is really nice to use with jails. You can update/install packages from the host.

`# pkg -j 1 update`


----------

