Upgrade NanoBSD - which slice?
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Hi there,
One little question: NanoBSD contains two slices, one active, from which the system actually boots and runs and one in behind which can be set to active later.
I'm running 2.0.1 still, if I upgrade to 2.0.3 as the web interface suggests, will it upgrade only the active slice? Am I right assumin that the passive slice is not upgraded?
Is the configuration changed during the upgrade process? I mean, if I reboot to the other (not-upgraded) slice, will it still work with the upgraded config?
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I'm running 2.0.1 still, if I upgrade to 2.0.3 as the web interface suggests, will it upgrade only the active slice? Am I right assumin that the passive slice is not upgraded?
No, it will update the other one (so that you can revert back) and boot from it.
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Hold on… you mean that the NanoBSD install actually updates the passive partition first??? Not the active one, which is running from?
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Not first - only the inactive one (which becomes active on reboot).
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OK - one more time, to make 100% sure that I understand right:
On a NanoBSD system, the update is applied only to the inactive partition. The active partition which the system is currently running from is left untouched. Did I understand right?
The other question - does the update touch the CONFIG in any way?
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On nanoBSD there are 2 partitions (slices) for copies of the pfSense/FreeBSD OS code. There is 1 partition for the config. The boot can be set to boot from whichever slice you want (Diagnostics-NanoBSD). The selected boot slice is the "active partition". The other slice is the "inactive partition".
When you upgrade, the new pfSense/FreeBSD OS image is written to the inactive slice, then the inactive slice is set to be the active slice, then the system reboots, booting from the newly active slice.
If the new version of pfSense requires newer formats of stuff in the config, then the config will be automatically converted on the first boot. In this case, you have to restore the old config to revert back. But otherwise the config is not changed, and you can switch boot slices freely.
If there is something wrong with the upgrade, then you can boot from the previously active slice and you are back running the pfSense/FreeBSD code you knew and loved.
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OK - thanks.
But: @phil.davis:
If the new version of pfSense requires newer formats of stuff in the config, then the config will be automatically converted on the first boot.
That's what I was asking - is there any config conversion between 2.0.1 and 2.0.3?
If there is something wrong with the upgrade, then you can boot from the previously active slice and you are back running the pfSense/FreeBSD code you knew and loved.
Because I'm afraid this can't go if the config is not the same - booting from the previous old slice could result in a non-functional system if the config is wrong - even failure to boot up - thus restoring the old config might be impossible…
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Or it could even explode in flames… Dunno, make a config backup, reinstall and restore takes like 5 minutes.
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OK OK thanks.
I wanted to make a backup of the entire CF card with dd before upgrade anyways.
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I don't believe there were any changes to the config file format between 2.0.1 and 2.0.3. Those were only bug fix updates. But backing up the config file takes seconds so do it anyway.
Steve
