Rob Baldassano wrote:
I have been running OpenBSD 3.6 since the day it came out, and am now
in need up going to 3.9
The question is: What upgrade issues have folks run into?
Very few, myself. I've got at least one machine running which started
out with OpenBSD 3.1, and has been remotely upgraded to 3.9, and will be
to 4.0 (unless I replace it for other reasons, and as it is a P1, there
is a lot of merit to doing so) (and yes, the upgrade over the 3.3 ->
3.4 ELF conversion was darned scary, but done without a trip to the box).
I'm running it on a DELL desktop.
you realize that doesn't help much, right?
However, I've found few desktop Dell machines that have difficulty with
OpenBSD, and can't think of any reason why a machine that ran 3.6 fine
would do anything other than run 3.9 at least as well (and likely, better).
BTW, some of the reasons I want to upgrade:
...
you missed the important reasons. A biggie being that 3.6 is no longer
supported by security patches.
You do need to upgrade.
Whether that means start over and reload from scratch, or follow the
upgrade process, that's for you to decide, but you need to stop running
3.6 and start running 3.9.
So... Any hints, pitfalls, suggestions that people have run into
before? in general is it safe to do an Upgrade? a former co-worker
says "NO don't do that, never trust upgrades". I tend to disagree.
On most systems, upgrades work Just Fine.
On the other hand...you haven't upgraded this machine in three releases,
so you have a bit of work to do (three separate upgrade processes).
Some thoughts, mostly without conclusions:
* If your disk layout is perfect, or at least sufficient, upgrade, don't
reload. If the disk layout turned out to be "wrong", good time to fix
it with a reload, rather than upgrade. (warning: your /usr partition
will grow by a huge amount for 3.9, 'specially if you have to build
-stable from source on this machine).
* New applications may need a new disk layout. On the other hand, you
may not know what that disk layout should be until after you are testing.
* Disk is cheap. Buying a new disk, install fresh and test on that. If
things go right, you are done, if they go wrong, you can easily revert
to your existing config until you figure out what went wrong.
* Used computers that run OpenBSD well for many apps are also
cheap...you could just swap out the whole machine...downtime measured in
minutes, and a fully tested replacement at that (and very fast reversion
if your testing sucks)... Granted, you mentioned Java...so this may not
apply.
* Look at why you have rejected the advice about keeping your machine
up-to-date with a supported version of OpenBSD (recommended upgrades
every six months, no less frequently than annually). Fix that.
* If you have installed a lot of software without the packages
mechanism, you may have "stuff" all over the place that you have no idea
how to get rid of.
* In your case, you will end up dumping all your installed packages due
to the 3.6->3.7 compiler upgrade. Not that this is bad, your installed
packages usually need to be updated more critically than the base system
anyway, but something to be aware of. It does give you a chance to say,
"THIS is what I want on the system, and not that".
As for your co-worker's advice about not doing upgrades, he's wrong. Of
course, there is some risk of doing anything to a running system, but
there is also a risk to doing nothing. You need to have the systems in
place to contain the risk of doing the upgrades, so that when there is a
security hole which turns out to be important, you can IMMEDIATELY and
without issue implement a practiced and understood process, not a "oh,
sh*t, now what do we do?". The upgrade process must be part of your plans.
Nick.
