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I don't have physical access to the server at the moment and I want to upgrade to 18.04 clean fresh (if possible) from the existing install I'm running now.

As no physical access is possible I'm thinking that a couple of things need to stay:

  • sshd running
  • networking so I can connect
  • user/password
  • /home if possible

By clean install I mean that I want to go as close to a new 18.04 install as possible and I'll rebuild my system myself.

Any ideas?

Zanna
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OHTO
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  • I would recommend that you discuss this item at the Ubuntu Forum for Servers. See also Ubuntu Development version / How to participate – sudodus Apr 24 '18 at 13:54
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    Is it really wise upgrading a server to a new release without having physical access ? (Forget the theoretical, I just would not embark on this lightly). My genuine advise is "don't". That said, there is the command "do-release-upgrade". Please,please,please make sure you backup all your config and all your data before you upgrade. Please consider arranging physical access and installing from fresh (on a second HDD if possible, in order to preserve the first in case of disaster) if you absolutely must upgrade to 18.04. – hatterman Apr 24 '18 at 13:56
  • Have a read of this post also. https://askubuntu.com/questions/110477/how-do-i-upgrade-to-a-newer-version-of-ubuntu – hatterman Apr 24 '18 at 14:04
  • if everything breaks I can get physical access but the local helper is hard to work with... Second I have full rsync of the box and all the important things are in dockers. – OHTO Apr 24 '18 at 14:27
  • To reviewers: I don't see how this problem is specific to 18.04, the answer certainly isn't. – dessert Apr 25 '18 at 21:00

1 Answers1

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Sometimes the answer to a question is:

Please, don't do this!

Because you might have a full rsync backup, but it's not about the backup: It's about the restore! How long is the restore going to take? How are you going to restore if you don't have access?

Unless you have all of the following:

  1. Remote console access!
  2. A full bootable off-line back-up (E.g. CloneZilla even if it's on a 128GB USB Stick or a 1-2-4TB USB HDD)
  3. The off-line backup drive contains a small 64 GB bootable partition containing a customized CloneZilla environment that will let you ssh into it to be able to do the restore.
  4. 18.04.1 (never install the first version of an OS, that is true under any OS whether it's DOS, NetWare, Windows, *nix, BSD, ...)

If all of the above is true, just do a do-release-upgrade

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Fabby
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  • Partial answer (or maybe my question wasn’t explained correctly) but ill take it. I did upgrade without problems but my original goal was to also get rid off all the packages not installed on a clean 18.04. Now I got all my existing pkgs upgraded aswall. Cheers – OHTO Apr 25 '18 at 21:49