FreeBSD 13.0 Upgrade Gotcha document?

[Doug McIntyre]

Is there a document somewhere documenting all the "gotchas" on doing a
FreeBSD 13.0 binary upgrades now-a-days?

Such as

*) additional zpools won't auto-import on boot until
'freebsd-update' is run again after boot to install new userland.
(Bad news if you leave your home directories on a secondary zpool and
don't have access to console and have best practice of not allowing root ssh in).

*) Zpools probably need to have 'zpool upgrade' done on them.

*) Make sure to re-install your boot loader before you
`zpool upgrade zroot` to not break bootloader.

*) /etc/motd has a new mechanism, look at /etc/motd.template instead.


Anything else?

[andrew clarke]

Post by Doug McIntyre
Is there a document somewhere documenting all the "gotchas" on doing a
FreeBSD 13.0 binary upgrades now-a-days?

...

Post by Doug McIntyre
*) Zpools probably need to have 'zpool upgrade' done on them.

I think this is only true if you want clean output from "zpool status"?
FreeBSD 13.0 should function fine on older pool versions.

Post by Doug McIntyre
*) Make sure to re-install your boot loader before you
`zpool upgrade zroot` to not break bootloader.

I believe "zpool upgrade" previously warned the admin to run
"gpart bootcode" to install the most recent bootcode for a ZFS
boot pool, but in 13.0 that warning is gone.

[Graham Perrin]

Post by Doug McIntyre
*) Zpools probably need to have 'zpool upgrade' done on them.

… FreeBSD 13.0 should function fine on older pool versions.

True for 13.0-CURRENT. Should be true for 13.0-RELEASE.

Post by Doug McIntyre
*) Make sure to re-install your boot loader before you
`zpool upgrade zroot` to not break bootloader.

I believe "zpool upgrade" previously warned the admin to run
"gpart bootcode" to install the most recent bootcode for a ZFS
boot pool, but in 13.0 that warning is gone.

Post by Doug McIntyre

… To update old ESP partitions, users should stop using the

gpart(8)
<https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=gpart&sektion=8&format=html>
utility. Instead,…

[andrew clarke]

Post by Graham Perrin

Post by andrew clarke

Post by Doug McIntyre
*) Make sure to re-install your boot loader before you
`zpool upgrade zroot` to not break bootloader.

I believe "zpool upgrade" previously warned the admin to run
"gpart bootcode" to install the most recent bootcode for a ZFS
boot pool, but in 13.0 that warning is gone.

Post by Doug McIntyre

… To update old ESP partitions, users should stop using the gpart(8)

<https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=gpart&sektion=8&format=html>
utility. Instead,…

That section of the release notes is a bit misleading. ESP is short for
"EFI System Partition" and this section of the 13.0 release notes only
applies to systems booting with EFI.

For older (vintage?) systems like mine that continue to use MBR, evidently
the command "gpart bootcode" is still correct. I used it in 13.0 after
upgrading my zroot pool on two different machines.