Upgrading from 10.0 to 10.1

[Liam Proven <lproven%gmail.com@localhost>]

I think I messed this up.

It has taken me several years of practice and exploring in VMs to be
able to get NetBSD installed on the bare metal in a multiboot setup.

This was the result of my first explorations:
https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/10/netbsd_93/

This mentions my hardware spec for installing 10:
https://www.theregister.com/2024/04/17/30yo_netbsd_releases_v10/

I Googled for info on how to upgrade. I didn't find much and the info
was conflicting or not completely applicable.

The only thing I found re 10.0 to 10.1 was this:

https://www.ncartron.org/upgrading-netbsd-to-101.html

I also read this chapter closely:

https://www.netbsd.org/docs/guide/en/chap-upgrading.html

I found this confusing and unhelpful.

1. There are two different methods described. It does not clearly
explain the differences, or give any recommendations about which to
prefer or why. Speaking as a (former) professional technical author
for enterprise Linux distributions among other things, when explaining
different tools that do the same thing, it is _necessary_ to explain
_why_ there are two and how to choose.

2. The `sysinst` method does not explain what it will upgrade. The
tool offers choices but does not explain what the choices mean.

For example:

«
Figure 4.6. Choosing the distribution filesets
»

Surely if one is upgrading then what it upgrades is what is presently
installed? You can't upgrade something which is not there to upgrade.
But the menu options here suggested to me that I should pick full
install regardless of what was already installed, and that might
install a lot of extra things I did not have and fill my root
partition.

I was not sure what to do.

I tried anyway. It ran for a long time -- hours -- and at the end I
was still on 10.0.

I moved on to the other method described.

3. The `sysupgrade` tool section contains scary warnings about the
necessity of doing some components before other components, but does
not then clearly explain how to do which first and how to check.

It also says there is an `auto` option and recommends it. It does not
specify if the `auto` option will do things in the correct order for
you.

The config files provided seemed to be incorrect, and although I was
running a clean install of 10.0 the config files contained mentions of
9.2 and other obsolete versions I never ran on this hardware. Why?
This seems like a bug to me.

The examples in the manual are also for obsolete releases and have not
been updated. That seems like an oversight to me.

Anyway, I edited the config file, attempting to specify 10.1, and ran

`sysupgrade auto`

It did a lot of work. I left it overnight.

In the morning it said it was done.

I rebooted.

I can no longer log in.

It starts to the graphical login screen. None of my credentials are accepted.

"Login incorrect or forbidden by policy."

At a text console, it says much the same:

"Login incorrect or refused on this terminal."

I guess I am stuck with reinstalling?

What is the _best_ way to upgrade a running system from a stable
release to the following one, when a new release arrives? Best as in
safest, easiest, least room for error, requiring the least expertise?

In contrast at the same time I upgraded OpenBSD 7.6 to 7.7.

1. I used pkg_add to upgrade all packages.
2. I used `sysupgrade` to do the kernel and base OS.

As far as I can tell it does not matter which way round you do this,
but I knew #2 meant a reboot so I wanted to do the bit that didn't
need a reboot first.

Clearly documented here:

 https://www.openbsd.org/faq/upgrade77.html

No parameters, no options, and it worked without intervention, first time.

I am sure I am guilty and the fault here is user error. However, I do
not know of any recovery method, and I am lost.

-- 
Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven ~ LinkedIn/X/FB: lproven
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