On 27/11/12 14:13, Paul Tansom wrote:
> I have a server (i.e. no desktop software, X, or etc. - not that this
> necessarily follows, but it does with me!)...
>
> ...anyway, this server is currently running Ubuntu 6.06LTS and I need to
> upgrade to 12.04LTS. Clearly I have two options, either upgrade or reinstall.
> Reinstall seems safer, bar the fact that there is some software that I would
> need to disect the configuration of to reinstate (a backup using BoxBackup to
> be precise); that points towards a step by step upgrade path (8.04, 10.04 and
> 12.04), but I'm somewhat nervous of the number of possible gotchas present in
> this. Has anyone done this and could comment? Did it go smoothly?!
>
The way I'd do this would be to back up your current server, including
all the BoxBackup configuration. Then install 12.04 fresh and restore
configuration from the backup.
Also bear in mind that most software will have changed versions between
6.06 and 12.04 so you may need to re-do configuration from scratch
anyway. So I'd say you need a plan:
* List all the essential software on your server and their versions;
* Document as much as possible about the configuration of all the
software for which you explicitly changed the config (at least where
the config files are);
* Do a backup of everything on an external HDD or another machine;
* Install from fresh;
* Install all the additional packages you need;
* Everything that you didn't need to configure last time round, leave
alone, the config on the new version should work;
* Everything that you needed to configure manually last time round,
check version numbers on 12.04: if it's the same than 6.06, you
should be able to restore config from your backup; if it's not the
same, you will need to understand the differences before you use the
old config;
* Finally, 12.04 uses AppArmor, which 6.06 didn't use (or not to the
same extent) so you may find that configurations that used to work
in the past now fall foul of AppArmor, in which case you will have
to tweak some policies: so every time you have an old config that
used to work and is now failing due to user permissions, double
check that it's not AppArmor being too restrictive rather than lose
the will to live by trying umpteen variations with chmod and chown.
This may be a good place to start:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1008906
Good luck!
Bruno
--
ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com
https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
