New on LowEndTalk? Please Register and read our Community Rules.
All new Registrations are manually reviewed and approved, so a short delay after registration may occur before your account becomes active.
All new Registrations are manually reviewed and approved, so a short delay after registration may occur before your account becomes active.
Can I upgrade Linux version safely on dedicated server?
I have a dedicated server from Online.net running Ubuntu 12.04.
I want to get 16.04 running on it and reinstalling is not an option. Is it possible?
I am not an expert, but I dont mind reinstalling some programs to make them works.
I have big data (a few TB) on the server and tranaferring out for a reinstallation of the server might take a very long time, plus I don't have another big server to keep my files temporarily.
Comments
Yeape it can be done. Should it be done prolly not.
If you don't know what the underlying OS requirements are- even if they were OpenVZ, you are not intelligent enough to handle it. Pay someone a few dollars a month to do it for you.
Is it hard? I am thinking about it gonna break stuff or not. Since I never do an upgrade, I asked here for opinions whether I should or shouldn't.
So I guess it is very risky? About your suggestion, it is safe for me to pass my server to someone I do not know? I had server on dreamhost years back and got f*cked up by my own friend after giving him an access to the server to fix something.
It is not hard for someone knowing what they are doing, BUT there is always the risk something will not update correctly and then you are splooged. You need to back up that server and then reinstall. Always better to reinstall fresh then upgrade if you can do it.
Then I need to find a 4tb server for backup T_T
I am hesitating to do this tho.
Can I keep some partition without wiping them for a reinstallation?
when you go for installation they ask to write chnages to disk it may cause you loss of data . so it suggest go for the full backup and do this ... if you want help in this try one site supervisor.io they may help you ..
Buy a Hetzner Server Auction (https://robot.your-server.de/order/market) 6TB and return it within the 14 day period
Kinda asshole but not totally asshole move because the servers are auto-provisioned.
Don't upgrade a production server to a new distro version. Totally can be done but that's still my advice to the average person. It's one thing to patch a production service, another thing entirely to replace all of your production services with full version upgrades.
The safe move is to prepare a new server and migrate.
@psycholyzern: It does kind of sound like you don't have much experience with upgrading, so this would be my main concern ...
... But if you have a backup of your personal files and you haven't customized your 12.04 installation too much, I strongly suspect that you could upgrade to 14.04 without problems. Note: 14.04 and not 16.04! 14.04 is supported until around April 2019, so this would buy you some time before deciding how to proceed further.
(In sum, yes, upgrading is more risky than a clean install on a new server, but in my experience, the risks in upgrading from 12.04 to 14.04 aren't so big, especially in light of the practical constraints of your setup, where a clean install would involve a lot of effort.)
Oh. I think this will make things complicated. I will try to find a way to do a clean installation. Thanks.
Oh cool. Thanks!
Yeah, I think I will do that. So much risk and just complicate things. Thanks
Yep, I am totally lack of experience for this challenge.
Thanks for the kind info, but I think I will do a full backup somewhere and do clean Ubuntu 16.04 installation. Thanks!
for me, the easiest way to proceed is to buy a new server (better than your current one). You install the OS to the new server and move all your data.
Finally, after you check that everything is fine with the new server, you change your dns to the new IP and you supervise for a couple days that every service is running well. Now you have finished with your current server.
Most if not all online.net servers have KVM. And with KVM you can simply try to install new OS into separate partition. You still have to be careful when working with partitions, but IMO it is better way than trying to upgrade.
@psycholyzern From your sayings, I thing you have a bigger issue here. I have the impression that you have >4TB data on the server that are valuable to you but you do not have backup. You are walking on thin ice. If (knock wood) the server face a hdd failure or being hacked, you will lose all of your valuable data. So, whatever will you do for upgrading your server, think to have a second one (server, big vps or whatever) to keep backups.
Dont, unless you know exactly what versions are used by the hosted software. It may be the control panel which depends on a particular php version, or an app you run on the server. There's a potential to break things.
But more problematic is the problem that once upgraded, there's no easy way to downgrade the OS version. That said, if you have a backup of all your databases, the files, and your home folder with any custom scripts sent to another server, you always have the option of reinstalling if anything breaks.
But prepare for downtime if anything happens. Ideally I'd install the upgraded OS on another server, test everything and make the move.