Sunday  8 September 2024


Upgrading a very outdated OpenBSD system
========================================

Currently, the latest version of OpenBSD is 7.5.

A system in my network that was still running OpenBSD 7.0 needed
upgrading.

Sysupgrade
----------
The sysupgrade command upgrades a system to the next release or a new
snapshot. This command starts by downloading the necessary files.
Usually, the install files of only the latest two version are
available. When you run sysupgrade on a very outdated system, the
command will fail, indicating that it can't find the required files.

Installurl
----------
The magic is all in the file `/etc/installurl'.

Replace the contents of this file with the repository that holds the
install files of older version.
For this, you can use:

   https://ftp.eu.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD

Incremental upgrade
-------------------
Once the contents of the file with the installurl points to this
repository, you can run the sysupgrade command.

This will upgrade the system to the next version that immediately
follows the current version of the system. For example, an
OpenBSD 7.0 system will be upgraded to OpenBSD 7.1

When the upgrade is fihished, run the command `sysmerge -d' to
update the configuration files.

The upgrade does not touch the file `/etc/installurl', it will
still point to the repository with the older install files.

Repeatedly run the command `sysupgrade' again, followed by `sysmerge -d',
until the system is at the latest version. When the latest version is
reached, first run `syspatch' and `pkg_add -Uu' before running
the command `sysmerge -d', as described in the handbook.

See: https://www.openbsdhandbook.com/upgrade/.

When all is done, don't forget to set the `/etc/installurl' file to
the right mirror.


Last edited: $Date: 2024/09/08 07:49:42 $