| 1 |
On 07/01/2015 21:06, Tomas Mozes wrote: |
| 2 |
> On 2015-01-07 13:47, Alan McKinnon wrote: |
| 3 |
>> On 07/01/2015 13:52, Stefan G. Weichinger wrote: |
| 4 |
>>> |
| 5 |
>>> I am in the process of upgrading an old (~2010) gentoo server. |
| 6 |
>>> The customer never wanted updates ... and now he wants ... *sigh* |
| 7 |
>> |
| 8 |
>> |
| 9 |
>> |
| 10 |
>> Don't waste your time (you are already experiencing the full reason why). |
| 11 |
>> |
| 12 |
>> Backup data and configs, reinstall Gentoo, restore data and configs. |
| 13 |
>> |
| 14 |
>> Downtime? Of course. A few hours. Customer needs to understand he |
| 15 |
>> brought this upon himself. |
| 16 |
>> |
| 17 |
>> |
| 18 |
>> Trying to do it in-place will likely takes *days* and fill you with pain |
| 19 |
>> and mucho downtime. This list, the forum, and planet are full of horror |
| 20 |
>> stories of what it takes to do it and the issues you will run into. |
| 21 |
>> Frankly, you do not need to prove you can do it (we know you can), and |
| 22 |
>> you have much better things to do with your time (like proper billable |
| 23 |
>> hours). |
| 24 |
>> |
| 25 |
>> It's worth repeating: the customer caused this, he must now feel the |
| 26 |
>> pain and not you. |
| 27 |
> |
| 28 |
> Strange, I only have successful stories with upgrading old gentoo |
| 29 |
> machines. If you have a machine which you update regularly then you know |
| 30 |
> all the issues during the time and so upgrading "per partes" leads to no |
| 31 |
> surprises but the same challenges you've handled before. But yes, it |
| 32 |
> takes time. |
| 33 |
|
| 34 |
I also have had good success with this, 100% in fact. As a technical |
| 35 |
challenge it gives you awesome brownie points with geeky colleagues and |
| 36 |
folk who understand what magic you had to do to succeed. I like that |
| 37 |
feeling as much as the next Gentooer. |
| 38 |
|
| 39 |
But Stefan is quite clear, this is a business arrangement. The manager |
| 40 |
in charge probably couldn't care less about Stefan's skill in updating a |
| 41 |
4 year old install. He probably wants heap, correct and fast and isn't |
| 42 |
interested in picking any two. Easiest route, the one of least pain is |
| 43 |
almost always a reinstall. |
| 44 |
|
| 45 |
> Moreover, if you use configuration management like Ansible, you can even |
| 46 |
> automatically merge changes when applications ship new configuration. |
| 47 |
|
| 48 |
If the box hasn't been updated in 4 years, it hasn't been touched in all |
| 49 |
that time either. It's virtually a certainty that Ansible came nowhere |
| 50 |
near it. CM-managed machines tend to be well maintained and updated, or |
| 51 |
short-lived (i.e. cattle) |
| 52 |
|
| 53 |
|
| 54 |
|
| 55 |
-- |
| 56 |
Alan McKinnon |
| 57 |
alan.mckinnon@×××××.com |
Archives