---
title: "FreeBSD 9.0-RELEASE Installation Instructions"
sidenav: download
---

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<h3 class="CORPAUTHOR">The FreeBSD Project</h3>

<p class="COPYRIGHT">Copyright &copy; 2012 The FreeBSD Documentation Project</p>

<p class="PUBDATE">$FreeBSD:
stable/9/release/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/installation/article.sgml 230001 2012-01-12
03:52:53Z hrs $<br />
</p>

<div class="LEGALNOTICE"><a id="TRADEMARKS" name="TRADEMARKS"></a>
<p>FreeBSD is a registered trademark of the FreeBSD Foundation.</p>

<p>Intel, Celeron, EtherExpress, i386, i486, Itanium, Pentium, and Xeon are trademarks or
registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and
other countries.</p>

<p>SPARC, SPARC64, SPARCengine, and UltraSPARC are trademarks of SPARC International, Inc
in the United States and other countries. SPARC International, Inc owns all of the SPARC
trademarks and under licensing agreements allows the proper use of these trademarks by
its members.</p>

<p>Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their
products are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this document, and
the FreeBSD Project was aware of the trademark claim, the designations have been followed
by the &#8220;&trade;&#8221; or the &#8220;&reg;&#8221; symbol.</p>
</div>

<hr />
</div>

<blockquote class="ABSTRACT">
<div class="ABSTRACT"><a id="AEN16" name="AEN16"></a>
<p>This article gives some brief instructions on installing FreeBSD 9.0-RELEASE and
upgrading the systems running earlier releases.</p>
</div>
</blockquote>

<div class="SECT1">
<hr />
<h2 class="SECT1"><a id="INSTALL" name="INSTALL">1 Installing FreeBSD</a></h2>

<p>The <a
href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/bsdinstall.html"
target="_top">&#8220;Installing FreeBSD&#8221;</a> chapter of the <a
href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/" target="_top">FreeBSD
Handbook</a> provides more in-depth information about the installation program itself,
including a guided walk-through with screenshots.</p>
</div>

<div class="SECT1">
<hr />
<h2 class="SECT1"><a id="UPGRADE" name="UPGRADE">2 Upgrading FreeBSD</a></h2>

<p>If you are upgrading from a previous release of FreeBSD, please read <a
href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/releases/9.0R/relnotes-detailed.html#UPGRADE"
target="_top">upgrading section in the Release Notes</a> for notable incompatibilities
carefully.</p>

<div class="SECT2">
<hr />
<h3 class="SECT2"><a id="AEN28" name="AEN28">2.1 Upgrading from Source</a></h3>

<p>The procedure for doing a source code based update is described in <a
href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/synching.html"
target="_top">http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/synching.html</a>
and <a href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook//makeworld.html"
target="_top">http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook//makeworld.html</a>.</p>

<p>For SVN use the <tt class="FILENAME">releng/9.0</tt> branch which will be where any
upcoming Security Advisories or Errata Notices will be applied. The branch tag to use for
updating the source is <tt class="LITERAL">RELENG_9_0</tt> for CVS.</p>
</div>

<div class="SECT2">
<hr />
<h3 class="SECT2"><a id="AEN36" name="AEN36">2.2 Upgrading Using &#8220;FreeBSD
Update&#8221;</a></h3>

<p>The <a
href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=freebsd-update&sektion=8&manpath=FreeBSD+9.0-RELEASE">
<span class="CITEREFENTRY"><span
class="REFENTRYTITLE">freebsd-update</span>(8)</span></a> utility supports binary
upgrades of i386 and amd64 systems running earlier FreeBSD releases. Systems running <tt
class="LITERAL">7.[34]-RELEASE</tt>, <tt class="LITERAL">8.[12]-RELEASE</tt>, <tt
class="LITERAL">9.0-BETA[123]</tt>, or <tt class="LITERAL">9.0-RC[123]</tt> can upgrade
as follows:</p>

<p>First, ensure that your current system is up to date; a change was recently made to <a
href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=freebsd-update&sektion=8&manpath=FreeBSD+9.0-RELEASE">
<span class="CITEREFENTRY"><span
class="REFENTRYTITLE">freebsd-update</span>(8)</span></a> (Errata Notice <a
href="http://security.FreeBSD.org/advisories/FreeBSD-EN-12:01.freebsd-update.asc"
target="_top">FreeBSD-EN-12:01.freebsd-update</a>) which is needed in order to upgrade to
FreeBSD 9.0-RELEASE.</p>

<pre class="SCREEN">
<samp class="PROMPT">#</samp> freebsd-update fetch
<samp class="PROMPT">#</samp> freebsd-update install
</pre>

<p>Now the <a
href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=freebsd-update&sektion=8&manpath=FreeBSD+9.0-RELEASE">
<span class="CITEREFENTRY"><span
class="REFENTRYTITLE">freebsd-update</span>(8)</span></a> utility can fetch bits
belonging to 9.0-RELEASE. During this process <a
href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=freebsd-update&sektion=8&manpath=FreeBSD+9.0-RELEASE">
<span class="CITEREFENTRY"><span
class="REFENTRYTITLE">freebsd-update</span>(8)</span></a> will ask for help in merging
configuration files.</p>

<pre class="SCREEN">
<samp class="PROMPT">#</samp> freebsd-update upgrade -r 9.0-RELEASE
</pre>

<p>Due to changes in the way that FreeBSD is packaged on the release media, two
complications may arise in this process if upgrading from FreeBSD 7.x or 8.x:</p>

<ol type="1">
<li>
<p>The FreeBSD, which previously could appear in either <tt
class="FILENAME">/boot/kernel</tt> or <tt class="FILENAME">/boot/GENERIC</tt>, now only
appears as <tt class="FILENAME">/boot/kernel</tt>. As a result, any kernel appearing in
<tt class="FILENAME">/boot/GENERIC</tt> will be deleted. Please carefully read the output
printed by <a
href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=freebsd-update&sektion=8&manpath=FreeBSD+9.0-RELEASE">
<span class="CITEREFENTRY"><span
class="REFENTRYTITLE">freebsd-update</span>(8)</span></a> and confirm that an updated
kernel will be placed into <tt class="FILENAME">/boot/kernel</tt> before proceeding
beyond this point.</p>
</li>

<li>
<p>The FreeBSD source tree in <tt class="FILENAME">/usr/src</tt> (if present) will be
deleted. (Normally the <a
href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=freebsd-update&sektion=8&manpath=FreeBSD+9.0-RELEASE">
<span class="CITEREFENTRY"><span
class="REFENTRYTITLE">freebsd-update</span>(8)</span></a> utility will update a source
tree, but in this case the changes in release packaging result in the <a
href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=freebsd-update&sektion=8&manpath=FreeBSD+9.0-RELEASE">
<span class="CITEREFENTRY"><span
class="REFENTRYTITLE">freebsd-update</span>(8)</span></a> utility not recognizing that
the source tree from the old release and the source tree from the new release correspond
to the same part of FreeBSD.)</p>
</li>
</ol>

<pre class="SCREEN">
<samp class="PROMPT">#</samp> freebsd-update install
</pre>

<p>The system must now be rebooted with the newly installed kernel before the non-kernel
components are updated.</p>

<pre class="SCREEN">
<samp class="PROMPT">#</samp> shutdown -r now
</pre>

<p>After rebooting, <a
href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=freebsd-update&sektion=8&manpath=FreeBSD+9.0-RELEASE">
<span class="CITEREFENTRY"><span
class="REFENTRYTITLE">freebsd-update</span>(8)</span></a> needs to be run again to
install the new userland components:</p>

<pre class="SCREEN">
<samp class="PROMPT">#</samp> freebsd-update install
</pre>

<p>At this point, users of systems being upgraded from FreeBSD 8.2-RELEASE or earlier
will be prompted by <a
href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=freebsd-update&sektion=8&manpath=FreeBSD+9.0-RELEASE">
<span class="CITEREFENTRY"><span
class="REFENTRYTITLE">freebsd-update</span>(8)</span></a> to rebuild all third-party
applications (e.g., ports installed from the ports tree) due to updates in system
libraries.</p>

<p>After updating installed third-party applications (and again, only if <a
href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=freebsd-update&sektion=8&manpath=FreeBSD+9.0-RELEASE">
<span class="CITEREFENTRY"><span
class="REFENTRYTITLE">freebsd-update</span>(8)</span></a> printed a message indicating
that this was necessary), run <a
href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=freebsd-update&sektion=8&manpath=FreeBSD+9.0-RELEASE">
<span class="CITEREFENTRY"><span
class="REFENTRYTITLE">freebsd-update</span>(8)</span></a> again so that it can delete the
old (no longer used) system libraries:</p>

<pre class="SCREEN">
<samp class="PROMPT">#</samp> freebsd-update install
</pre>

<p>Finally, reboot into 9.0-RELEASE</p>

<pre class="SCREEN">
<samp class="PROMPT">#</samp> shutdown -r now
</pre>
</div>
</div>
</div>

<hr />
<p align="center"><small>This file, and other release-related documents, can be
downloaded from <a
href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/releases/">http://www.FreeBSD.org/releases/</a>.</small></p>

<p align="center"><small>For questions about FreeBSD, read the <a
href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/docs.html">documentation</a> before contacting &#60;<a
href="mailto:questions@FreeBSD.org">questions@FreeBSD.org</a>&#62;.</small></p>

<p align="center"><small>All users of FreeBSD 9.0-STABLE should subscribe to the &#60;<a
href="mailto:stable@FreeBSD.org">stable@FreeBSD.org</a>&#62; mailing list.</small></p>

<p align="center"><small>For questions about this documentation, e-mail &#60;<a
href="mailto:doc@FreeBSD.org">doc@FreeBSD.org</a>&#62;.</small></p>
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