I want to try #FreeBSD 15.0-Alpha2 but I'm on 14.3-Release. Is there a way to easily upgrade but be able to roll back if I need to? I could take a snapshot of the ZFS root then run the installer off a usb stick?
ZFS boot environments mostly handle this for you. The freebsd-update method of generating a boot environment snapshot before upgrading is essentially this command:
bectl create $(uname -r)-$(date +%Y-%m-%d_%H%M%S)
However, if all you want is some new kernel features and don't need the updated base OS for anything* you could just boot into the new kernel, do your testing, and then boot back into the 14.3-RELEASE kernel.
* unsure of any incompatibilities between 14.3 base and 15.0 kernel right now; it happens between major releases, but rarely. Usually harmless inconveniences if they happen.
if you put all your important stuff in Jails then you can just have 14.3 jails and the host OS can be 15.0. You get the stable stuff you want in the jails, and the bleeding edge kernel, ZFS, networking stack, etc outside the jails. That makes things a lot easier to deal with too, especially when it comes to situations where the packages for the software you want might not be building correctly on 15 yet
feld
in reply to Tom • • •ZFS boot environments mostly handle this for you. The freebsd-update method of generating a boot environment snapshot before upgrading is essentially this command:
bectl create $(uname -r)-$(date +%Y-%m-%d_%H%M%S)
However, if all you want is some new kernel features and don't need the updated base OS for anything* you could just boot into the new kernel, do your testing, and then boot back into the 14.3-RELEASE kernel.
* unsure of any incompatibilities between 14.3 base and 15.0 kernel right now; it happens between major releases, but rarely. Usually harmless inconveniences if they happen.
Tom
in reply to feld • • •feld
in reply to Tom • • •