Upgrade or fresh install

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Message-ID: <375DA46F.A7F22435@aplawrence.com>
Subject: Re: upgrading to 5.05
References: <375C43DC.EC29C5AD@inreach.com> <19990608085004.20827.00001791@ng-fb1.aol.com>

The subject of IPU's (In Place Upgrades) is often a hot one. For those of us with a lot of experience in this, the choice is obvious: you do a fresh install almost always. The only exception might be with a plain vanilla install that is only very slightly out of date.

The problem is two-fold: the humans who write the upgrade procedures can't anticipate every situation they might run into. The second reason is to clean up the cruft that sneaks into any machine over the years.

One of the easiest ways for Linux/Unix systems is to use one of the Supertars because they can help make this nearly painless. These are commercial products, but they have trial versions, so download an eval copy. You get to use it for 60 or 90 days anyway, so you've got that long to convince your bosses that they are idiots not to have this. Or just use it for the upgrade and toss it. I think that's foolish, but it is your busness.

In Place Upgrades can screw up and leave you with a totally dead machine. If you don't have a good understanding of the things that could go wrong, and aren't prepared to deal with these potential problems, then I would suggest that you are not prepared to do this on any machine that is important. Hire somebody experienced to help, or practice on other machines first. If this is an important server, you do not want to fumble around.

Other problems may be less drastic, but still could cripple your business. An application that won't run can be as bad as a dead machine. Even relatively minor glitches can take more time to figure out, which costs you aggravation and lost time.

Speaking of time, very often doing a fresh install and restoring backups is actually faster than an in place upgrade. That's even counting the extra time you spend configuring the box. The IPU software has to search out all kinds of things to see if they need re-doing; that takes time.

I've done many hundreds, maybe even thousands of upgrades and installs. I installed so many Xenix systems that I could do it without a monitor, and later on most of those got upgraded to Unix and later to OSR5. I've also done my share of Solaris and Linux boxes. Yes, sometimes I have done IPU's, but generally I prefer a fresh install over an in place upgrade.

If you haven't done it before, and we have (many of us earn our livings doing installs and upgrades and troubleshooting), why would you need any more advice? If you still feel you are going to try an upgrade, at least be prepared to do a fresh install if necessary, and keep in mind that the problems that might crop up from an upgrade might not be noticed for days or sometimes weeks if they are subtle or relat to things that don't occur every day.

Again, see Upgrades vs. fresh installs , Opinions on In Place Upgrades (SCO and Linux) and IPU's vs. Fresh Installs

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