FreeBSD Upgrade

This option is only for versions of FreeBSD older than 4.11.

For versions of FreeBSD older than 4.11, the safest upgrade page is to first upgrade from 4.x to 4.11. Then reboot on a 4.11 kernel and upgrade again to FreeBSD 5.5. This second upgrade may require additional downtime of 5-45 minutes. We will need someone at the console and the length of down time is dependent on the skill level of that person.

For upgrading from FreeBSD 4.11 to 6-latest.

Upgrading a production system from FreeBSD 4 to 6 with minimal downtime is a two stage upgrade. The first stage is to upgrade to FreeBSD 5.5 as documented in the canonical FreeBSD Handbook, making sure to include the FreeBSD 4 compatability option. Then we upgrade the system again from 5.5 to 6-latest. Once FreeBSD is upgraded, all existing binaries should be recompiled for use on FreeBSD 6.

This is a fairly common option. Many owners of FreeBSD 4.x systems have chosen not to upgrade to FreeBSD 5 but now want the new features available in FreeBSD 6.

The hostname or IP address of the server(s) to perform the work upon.

preferred TNPI username

alternate tnpi login username.

The password should be randomly generated. If using FreeBSD, the adduser script will do this for you automatically. Alternately, you can select "no password" when creating the account and install our public SSH key. If you install the SSH key (the preferred method) then set the password field to "ssh key".

ssh-dss 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 matt@tibook.simerson.net

Use sudo to elevate privileges from standard login user to root. Create a login account (pw useradd matt) and set the password to "changeme" or some other randomly assigned equivalent using passwd matt. If you don't have sudo installed, install it (pkg_add -r sudo) and grant the user "matt" su privilges by adding this line "matt ALL = NOPASSWD: ALL" to your sudoers file. Edit the sudoers file using the "visudo" program. Test by logging in as "matt" and make sure you can "sudo su".

An alternative method for gaining root permissions is using the root password. If you choose this method, be sure to send a separate blank email to sales@tnpi.net with the root password. NOTE: Be sure to add the tnpi username (matt) to the wheel group be editing /etc/group. Test to insure that you can successfully log in as the tnpi user and su to root. It is also recommended that you change the password before granting us access. Then when we are finished, set the password back to the original setting.

If your server is more than 3 years old or is perpetually very busy, there's a pretty good chance it qualifies as a "slow server." Slow servers obviously take a lot longer to accomplish anything on. Instead of taking two hours, it might take 3 or 4. However, if you choose the slow server option, we'll know in advance that it'll take a while. In such cases, we can queue up a few long running tasks and then go off and do something else. You can bet that if you pre-pay the slow server option, we'll be a whole lot more generous when it comes time to billing for the job. It could take 4 or 5 hours for your machine to do all the work, but we'll be content to bill for only 3.