OpenBSD 7.4 is here and its time to upgrade your 7.3 system!

Like everything else, OpenBSD has good documentation about the update process. But here are the steps spelled out.

There are three ways to update OpenBSD, but I’ll go with the interactive update which lets you exclude some of the install sets.

# Download the ramdisk kernel file bsd.rd for AMD64 architecture
# Replace amd64 to the architecture you need
# One of: alpha, arm64, armv7, hppa, i386, loongson, luna88k, macppc, octeon, powerpc64, riscv64, sparc64
$ curl -o bsd.rd.74 -L https://cdn.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/7.4/amd64/bsd.rd

# Download the checksum for that file too
# Similarly, replace amd64 with the correct architecture
$ curl -OL https://cdn.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/7.4/amd64/SHA256.sig

# Verify the kernel file
$ signify -C -p /etc/signify/openbsd-74-base.pub -x SHA256.sig bsd.rd.74

# Copy the kernel file for 7.4 to the root
$ doas mv bsd.rd.74 /

Once the kernel file bsd.rd.74 is in root, reboot your computer and in the boot> prompt type bsd.rd.74 to start the 7.4 kernel.

When prompted, select (U) to start the upgrade process.

# After the upgrade is done, and the computer is rebooted, merge the configuration files
$ doas sysmerge

# Usually after this step, old files from the previous installation is removed, but there are none for this release

# Finally, upgrade the packages and follow any other instructions
$ doas pkg_add -u

And the upgrade is finished!