My Server runs FreeBSD because it’s what I know best, what I manage the most easiest. It’s stable and running smooth without too much effort on my part for years now. Since I’m running 6.x, binary updating makes it easy for me to track the RELEASE builds and to upgrade in time.

So “freebsd-update” finally closed the gap on FreeBSD, which Microsoft opened with their “Automatic Updates” on Windows systems decades ago, which made it easy for any sysadmin to patch their server(s).

So, let’s run down basic procedures of a binary update using “freebsd-update”:

First of all, if you are unsure or don’t want to follow instructions blindly and verify options and parameters, always use “man” as in “man freebsd-update”, in this case.

Important to note is, that “freebsd-update” really only works if you use FreeBSD RELEASE or RC builds – simply put all such builds, which you can download as CD/DVD ISO – of course you can also compile your box e.g. to the current RELEASE build (if you are currently tracking STABLE or CURRENT) in order to enable binary updates.

Now let’s see how we update our RELEASE build to include latest security fixes…

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