Freebsd – Unable to update using “freebsd-update” on FreeBSD 7.4-RELEASE

freebsd

Is there a way to upgrade 7.4-RELEASE-p5 to 7.4-RELEASE-p12 using freebsd-update now?

bash-4.2# freebsd-update upgrade -r 7.4-RELEASE-p12
Looking up update.FreeBSD.org mirrors... 5 mirrors found.
Fetching metadata signature for 7.4-RELEASE from update4.freebsd.org... done.
Fetching metadata index... done.
Inspecting system... done.

The following components of FreeBSD seem to be installed:
kernel/generic src/base src/bin src/cddl src/contrib src/crypto src/etc
src/games src/gnu src/include src/krb5 src/lib src/libexec src/release
src/rescue src/sbin src/secure src/share src/sys src/tools src/ubin
src/usbin world/base world/dict world/doc world/games world/info
world/lib32 world/manpages world/proflibs

The following components of FreeBSD do not seem to be installed:
world/catpages

Does this look reasonable (y/n)? y

Fetching metadata signature for 7.4-RELEASE-p12 from update4.freebsd.org... failed.
Fetching metadata signature for 7.4-RELEASE-p12 from update5.freebsd.org... failed.
Fetching metadata signature for 7.4-RELEASE-p12 from update6.freebsd.org... failed.
Fetching metadata signature for 7.4-RELEASE-p12 from update2.freebsd.org... failed.
Fetching metadata signature for 7.4-RELEASE-p12 from update3.freebsd.org... failed.
No mirrors remaining, giving up.
bash-4.2# uname -a
FreeBSD XX.XXXXX.org 7.4-RELEASE-p5 FreeBSD 7.4-RELEASE-p5 #0: Fri Dec 23 17:36:54 UTC 2011     root@XX.XXXXX.org:/usr/obj/usr/src74/sys/GENERIC  amd64
bash-4.2#

Best Answer

No.

If you refer to the FreeBSD handbook information on freebsd-update you will see, in a big gray box, the following note (emphasis added):

Binary updates are available for all architectures and releases currently supported by the security team. Before updating to a new release, its release announcement should be reviewed as it contains important information pertinent to the release. Release announcements are available from http://www.FreeBSD.org/releases/.

If you refer to the FreeBSD Security Team's main page you will see that FreeBSD 7.x is no longer a "supported release", and reached end of life in February of 2013.

Therefore there is no way to update this system using freebsd-update and the FreeBSD project's official servers.

Your options:

  1. Upgrade to a supported release of FreeBSD.
    (Let's be honest, this is what you should do. Stop reading now and get to planning your upgrade.)

  2. Upgrade the old fashioned way, using the source code

  3. If you have a large enough environment to justify it, run your own FreeBSD-update server for the 7.x series.

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