One reason why I love OpenBSD

Published at 2024-01-13T22:55:33+02:00

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I just upgraded my OpenBSD's from `7.3` to `7.4` by following the unattended upgrade guide:

https://www.openbsd.org/faq/upgrade74.html

$ doas installboot sd0 # Update the bootloader (not for every upgrade required)
$ doas sysupgrade # Update all binaries (including Kernel)

`sysupgrade` downloaded and upgraded to the next release and rebooted the system. After the reboot, I run:

Note to myself: I have to undo the `/var/www` symlink before upgrading, and re-establishing the symlink afterwards again. This is due to disk space constraings on my setup!

$ doas sysmerge # Update system configuration files
$ doas pkg_add -u # Update all packages
$ doas reboot # Just in case, reboot one more time

That's it! Took me around 5 minutes in total! No issues, only these few comands, only 5 minutes! It just works! No problems, no conflicts, no tons (actually none) config file merge conflicts.

I followed the same procedure the previous times and never encountered any difficulties with any OpenBSD upgrades.

I have seen upgrades of other Operating Systems either take a long time or break the system (which takes manual steps to repair). That's just one of many reasons why I love OpenBSD! There appear never to be any problems. It just gets its job done!

The OpenBSD Project

BTW: are you looking for an opinionated OpenBSD VM hoster? OpenBSD Amsterdam may be for you. They rock (I am having a VM there, too)!

https://openbsd.amsterdam

E-Mail your comments to `paul@nospam.buetow.org` :-)

Other *BSD related posts are:

2026-04-02 f3s: Kubernetes with FreeBSD - Part 9: GitOps with ArgoCD

2025-12-14 f3s: Kubernetes with FreeBSD - Part 8b: Distributed Tracing with Tempo

2025-12-07 f3s: Kubernetes with FreeBSD - Part 8: Observability

2025-10-02 f3s: Kubernetes with FreeBSD - Part 7: k3s and first pod deployments

2025-07-14 f3s: Kubernetes with FreeBSD - Part 6: Storage

2025-05-11 f3s: Kubernetes with FreeBSD - Part 5: WireGuard mesh network

2025-04-05 f3s: Kubernetes with FreeBSD - Part 4: Rocky Linux Bhyve VMs