There are two methods for updating a FreeBSD system: from source or binary updates.
Updating from source is the most involved update method, but offers the greatest amount of flexibility. The process involves synchronizing a local copy of the FreeBSD source code with the FreeBSD Subversion servers. Once the local source code is up-to-date, a new version of the kernel and userland can be compiled.
Binary updates are similar to using yum
or apt-get to update a Linux® system. In
FreeBSD, freebsd-update(8) can be used fetch new binary
updates and install them. These updates can be scheduled using
cron(8).
When using cron(8) to schedule updates, use
freebsd-update cron in the crontab(1)
to reduce the possibility of a large number of machines all
pulling updates at the same time:
0 3 * * * root /usr/sbin/freebsd-update cron
For more information on source and binary updates, refer to the chapter on updating in the FreeBSD Handbook.
All FreeBSD documents are available for download at https://download.freebsd.org/ftp/doc/
Questions that are not answered by the
documentation may be
sent to <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.org>.
Send questions about this document to <freebsd-doc@FreeBSD.org>.