freenas jail update fails, what does it do?

[ikke]

Hi,

I'm struggling with jail upgrade. It fails with an error message saying it could not generate plugin backups. I see there is backup directory where plugins are stored. I'm running 8.3.1 release freenas, and was trying to install the latest p1 jail. I don't know how to see which version the original jail is.

This brings up questions:
1. what exactly is the jail update trying to do?
2. can the jail be upgraded from inside, like doing some sort of port update?
3. how does one find out what's the version of an installed jail?

The question nr.1 interests me, since I plan to put stuff like mysql/mariadb, nginx and owncloud in there. How would I do the further upgrades? I assume using ports update from inside the jail. Or is the update tool somehow smart enough to only patch the updated parts of jail?

Thanks for any info on the issue,

ikke

 

[paleoN]

I'm struggling with jail upgrade. It fails with an error message saying it could not generate plugin backups. I see there is backup directory where plugins are stored. I'm running 8.3.1 release freenas, and was trying to install the latest p1 jail. I don't know how to see which version the original jail is.

According to William you shouldn't bother:

Upgrade freenas, _DO NOT_ upgrade the jail.

I would like to point out that upgrade a jail is totally useless for people that have plugins running and should be avoided at all costs because it does not bring any advantages.

The question nr.1 interests me, since I plan to put stuff like mysql/mariadb, nginx and owncloud in there. How would I do the further upgrades? I assume using ports update from inside the jail. Or is the update tool somehow smart enough to only patch the updated parts of jail?

FYI, if you want a FreeBSD 9 based jail you will need to redo this when 9.1 is out in a few of months.

 

[ikke]

paleoN, thanks for the pointers. I believe William's answers are a bit of a simplified answers to make a point. I understand in the most cases you don't need to update, especially if the plugins are the only points serving the outside world. But never the less, it would be interesting to know how to update when there is the need, be it a bug or security issue. I recall the update gave some patching error, so it left me qurious if it really tries to merge in the updates in some clever way.

I start to get the feeling the ports usage is the way to keep the jail contents up to date.