I did the usual steps to upgrade a 9.2-RELEASE host to 10.1-RELEASE: - freebsd-update upgrade -r 10.1-RELEASE - freebsd-update install - reboot - freebsd-update install Unfortunately it fails while trying to install the userland components: # freebsd-update install Installing updates…ln: ///usr/lib/private/libheimipcc.so: No such file or directory install: ///usr/lib/private/libheimipcc.so.11: No such file or directory ln: ///usr/lib/private/libheimipcs.so: No such file or directory install: ///usr/lib/private/libheimipcs.so.11: No such file or directory ln: ///usr/lib/private/libldns.so: No such file or directory install: ///usr/lib/private/libldns.so.5: No such file or directory ln: ///usr/lib/private/libssh.so: No such file or directory install: ///usr/lib/private/libssh.so.5: No such file or directory ln: ///usr/lib/private/libucl.so: No such file or directory install: ///usr/lib/private/libucl.so.1: No such file or directory ln: ///usr/lib/private/libunbound.so: No such file or directory install: ///usr/lib/private/libunbound.so.5: No such file or directory ln: ///usr/lib/private/libyaml.so: No such file or directory install: ///usr/lib/private/libyaml.so.1: No such file or directory freebsd-update(8) fails because it assumes that /usr/lib/private exists, while it wasn't introduced until 9.3-RELEASE. As a result sshd(8) and pkg(8) will stop working due to missing libraries. This should be fixed to allow users to upgrade from 9.2-RELEASE to 10.x. The EOL for 9.2 is set to 2014-12-31, so it's likely that an increasing number of users will experience this issue. As a sidenote freebsd-update(8) actually did exit with code 0, thus not reporting an error. I would expect freebsd-update(8) to exit with non-zero exit code if it fails to install a system library.
This bug also affects systems upgrading from 9.3-RELEASE -> 10.1-RELEASE. I experienced this at great inconvenience (servers are a continent away) on three systems that I upgraded. Upgrade history: 9.2 -> 9.3 on Aug 13, 2014. 9.1 -> 9.2 on Jan 19, 2014. 9.0 -> 9.1 on Feb 15, 2013. 8.2 -> 9.0 on Aug 7, 2012.
Is it possible one of your previous upgrades was not completed properly? such as in https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=196760
@Allan: In my case there was no previous major upgrade. These servers were initially installed with 9.2-RELEASE and the step to 10.1-RELEASE was the first major upgrade.
Was your system patched for EN-13:04 and EN-13:05? Based on the symptoms, I suspect the answer is "no." https://www.freebsd.org/security/advisories/FreeBSD-EN-13:04.freebsd-update.asc https://www.freebsd.org/security/advisories/FreeBSD-EN-13:05.freebsd-update.asc
I did retest this issue on a new VM: - installed FreeBSD 9.2-RELEASE - ran freebsd-update(8) to update to latest patchlevel - ran freebsd-update(8) to upgrade to 10.1-RELEASE This time the upgrade succeeded. Apparently @gjb is right about the missing system patches. I cannot verify this on my old machines anymore, but this new test proves he's right with his assumption. I'm closing this report now, because my issue is solved.