How To Use beadm to Upgrade FreeBSD installed in a ZFS Boot Environment, with minimal downtime

Required Applications

The only application required to get you going is the sysutils/beadm application, I am also going to install the ports-mgmt/pkg and ports-mgmt/portmaster applications first. 

cd /usr/ports-mgmt/pkg && make install clean
cd /usr/ports-mgmt/portmaster && make install clean
portmaster sysutils/beadm

Current List of installed ports

  • beadm-1.1_1 Solaris-like utility to manage Boot Environments on ZFS
  • dialog4ports-0.1.5_2 Console Interface to configure ports
  • pkg-1.4.4 Package manager
  • portmaster-3.17.7 Manage your ports without external databases or languages