From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Jul 18 21:36:01 2003 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id DA87537B401 for ; Fri, 18 Jul 2003 21:36:01 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bluejay.mail.pas.earthlink.net (bluejay.mail.pas.earthlink.net [207.217.120.218]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2E61B43F3F for ; Fri, 18 Jul 2003 21:36:01 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from tlambert2@mindspring.com) Received: from user-38lc0tp.dialup.mindspring.com ([209.86.3.185] helo=mindspring.com) by bluejay.mail.pas.earthlink.net with asmtp (SSLv3:RC4-MD5:128) (Exim 3.33 #1) id 19djRT-0002aJ-00; Fri, 18 Jul 2003 21:35:32 -0700 Message-ID: <3F18CA54.C9AEFE55@mindspring.com> Date: Fri, 18 Jul 2003 21:34:28 -0700 From: Terry Lambert X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.79 [en] (Win98; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: netch@lucky.net References: <20030718091248.GO76126@lucky.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-ELNK-Trace: b1a02af9316fbb217a47c185c03b154d40683398e744b8a4038dabeaae06adf191f3f86cad085cf5350badd9bab72f9c350badd9bab72f9c350badd9bab72f9c cc: hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: complicated downgrade X-BeenThere: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Technical Discussions relating to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 19 Jul 2003 04:36:02 -0000 Valentin Nechayev wrote: > I need to downgrade a remote FreeBSD system from 5.1-release to 4.8-release > remotely without any local help (except possible hitting Reset). > Don't ask why the collocation provider is too ugly and too far from me; it's > given and unchangeable. This system never was 4.* (began from 5.0-DP2). I have done this before. The best was to deal with this is to create a 5.1 system locally, and deal with all the problems that come up there, transplanting the resulting scripts to the system in question. Your biggest problems are going to be the creation of the /dev, which will need to occur in an rc.local on reboot, replacing the disklabel boot code, and the changes to the conf file for ssh to operate correctly (you will likely need to regenerate keys). If you can't remotely NFS mount a CDROM, a lot of the work is going to be getting access to installation media. -- Terry