On 07/01/2015 21:06, Tomas Mozes wrote: > On 2015-01-07 13:47, Alan McKinnon wrote: >> On 07/01/2015 13:52, Stefan G. Weichinger wrote: >>> >>> I am in the process of upgrading an old (~2010) gentoo server. >>> The customer never wanted updates ... and now he wants ... *sigh* >> >> >> >> Don't waste your time (you are already experiencing the full reason why). >> >> Backup data and configs, reinstall Gentoo, restore data and configs. >> >> Downtime? Of course. A few hours. Customer needs to understand he >> brought this upon himself. >> >> >> Trying to do it in-place will likely takes *days* and fill you with pain >> and mucho downtime. This list, the forum, and planet are full of horror >> stories of what it takes to do it and the issues you will run into. >> Frankly, you do not need to prove you can do it (we know you can), and >> you have much better things to do with your time (like proper billable >> hours). >> >> It's worth repeating: the customer caused this, he must now feel the >> pain and not you. > > Strange, I only have successful stories with upgrading old gentoo > machines. If you have a machine which you update regularly then you know > all the issues during the time and so upgrading "per partes" leads to no > surprises but the same challenges you've handled before. But yes, it > takes time.
I also have had good success with this, 100% in fact. As a technical challenge it gives you awesome brownie points with geeky colleagues and folk who understand what magic you had to do to succeed. I like that feeling as much as the next Gentooer. But Stefan is quite clear, this is a business arrangement. The manager in charge probably couldn't care less about Stefan's skill in updating a 4 year old install. He probably wants heap, correct and fast and isn't interested in picking any two. Easiest route, the one of least pain is almost always a reinstall. > Moreover, if you use configuration management like Ansible, you can even > automatically merge changes when applications ship new configuration. If the box hasn't been updated in 4 years, it hasn't been touched in all that time either. It's virtually a certainty that Ansible came nowhere near it. CM-managed machines tend to be well maintained and updated, or short-lived (i.e. cattle) -- Alan McKinnon alan.mckin...@gmail.com
