Upgrading FreeBSD 5.4 to 6.0

I upgraded my first production box from FreeBSD 5.4 to 6.0 with great success. This box runs Apache, MySQL, PHP, and my ncid server. Other than ncid, nothing else is really production nor critical on this box. This is my least "production" server so it was the least-risky to attempt.

I did the usual cvsup, using tag RELENG_6 to get the 6.0 RC1 sources, and built and installed world/kernel and ran mergemaster. For more details on how to do these things, I recommend Richard Bejtlich's excellent Keeping FreeBSD Up To Date article. Richard does a good job of addressing everything there, no need to reinvent the wheel.

Everything came out perfectly well with one small change with serial port naming that kept my ncid server from starting. Serial ports in 5.x were /dev/cuaaX and are now /dev/cuadX where X is the number of the serial port. This box has one serial port so it changed from /dev/cuaa0 to /dev/cuad0. A simple change in my ncidd.conf file and manually firing up ncidd fixed that.

All else is running well with no other changes at all. Looks like FreeBSD 5.x to 6.0 upgrades will be pretty painless.