Bug 254246

Summary:	Fresh install 12.2 Stable on zfs; freebsd-update fails
Product:	Base System	Reporter:	Bert Nijhof <lammert.nijhof>
Component:	bin	Assignee:	freebsd-bugs (Nobody) <bugs>
Status:	Closed Works As Intended
Severity:	Affects Some People	CC:	zarychtam
Priority:	---
Version:	12.2-STABLE
Hardware:	amd64
OS:	Any

Description Bert Nijhof 2021-03-12 20:30:12 UTC

Fresh install 12.2 Stable on ZFS, the install has been done with all defaults. The first command after root login "freebsd-update fetch" fails with "cannot update from a version that is not a release".

System: Virtualbox 6.1.18 running on Host-OS Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. The vdi file is 20GB. The virtualbox set up worked fine with 12.1.
ISO file: FreeBSD-12.2-STABLE-amd64-20210225-r369362-disc1
Hardware: Ryzen 3 2200G; 2 ZFS striped partitions in Ubuntu for the vdi file, also used with 30 other VMs (Linux and Windows).

I will keep the installation for some time, in case you need more info.

Partition info and ZFS (zpool and zfs) all as expected.

Comment 1 Marek Zarychta 2021-03-12 21:18:59 UTC

It's not a bug but a feature.

The STABLE has to be updated from sources, freebsd-update(8) is a tool to handle RELEASE and sometimes BETA or RC versions.
You can trick freebsd-update(8) with "--currently-running" option to skip this check, but the resulted upgrade can become inconsistent and full of mismerges done by etcupdate(8).

Please consider closing this PR.

Comment 2 Bert Nijhof 2021-03-13 10:40:48 UTC

OK but that name STABLE for something that is still in development is extremely confusing for a normal person. I will try to find RELEASE and use that.

Comment 3 Mark Linimon freebsd_committer

2021-03-13 14:20:12 UTC

(In reply to Bert Nijhof from comment #2)

fwiw this is discussed more in the FAQ in "1.9. What is the FreeBSD-STABLE concept?":
https://docs.freebsd.org/faq/introduction.html#idp44956152