[nycbug-talk] FreeBSD 32-bit to 64-bit?

[Charles Sprickman]

Top-posting and answering myself for the archives...

Easiest way to do this was to build a kernel as described below, grab all 
the install filesets for amd64, boot the 64-bit kernel single user and 
then extract the install bits over the existing system and smack 
permissions into place with the mtree files included with the install 
filesets.

The only gotcha is to watch during the extraction for anything that could 
not be overwritten due to the immutable bit being set on the files.

Oh, and the base install will give you a new /etc (figured that out when I 
couldn't login anymore). :)

C

On Wed, 23 Dec 2009, Charles Sprickman wrote:

> Howdy,
>
> Anyone got some pointers on how to "convert" an existing 8.0 32 bit
> install to a 64 bit install?
>
> Caveat: The machine in question has no floppy, no optical drive, and usb
> keys and such are a bit wonky on it, so I have to do this without
> resorting to booting new install media.  I do have a serial console.
>
> I did manage to build and boot a 64 bit kernel using this incantation:
>
> make -j4 TARGET_ARCH=amd64 buildworld buildkernel KERNCONF=BWAY8-64
>
> Installing was rough, the build system wants that installed anywhere but
> "/boot", so I had to set DESTDIR to a directory in /tmp and move the
> kernel into place manually.  Using nextboot to boot that kernel works, but
> the build system seems to kind of fall apart when trying to install world.
>
> Even simple pointers like "this is how the build system figures out what
> architecture it's on and these are the variables it sets" would be very
> helpful.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Charles
>
> ___
> Charles Sprickman
> NetEng/SysAdmin
> Bway.net - New York's Best Internet - www.bway.net
> spork at bway.net - 212.655.9344
>
> _______________________________________________
> talk mailing list
> talk at lists.nycbug.org
> http://lists.nycbug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk
>