Opinions on In Place Upgrades (SCO and Linux)

This page is to collect opinions on in place upgrades. My own opinions are strongly expressed at http://aplawrence.com/Unixart/upgrades.html and /Unixart/ipuvsfreshinstall.html

Basically, I think fresh installs are usually a better idea, and actually are usually quicker.

But other folks have different opinions.
name: Tony Lawrence
company: A.P. Lawrence
company: More than 20 years
webpage: http://aplawrence.com
email: tonyl@pcunix.com
yesno: Y
comment: For some very minor upgrades, where you have a clear understanding of what is being replaced and what isn't, you might consider this if (and only if) the upgrade can also be backed out easily. But the unfortunate fact is, IPU's often cause problems. It is very difficult to anticipate every possible configuration, and nearly impossible to make a fool-proof IPU program. If all the IPU did was fail miserably, that wouldn't be so bad. However, the "failures" are apt to be more subtle, and take the form of annoying and seemingly inexplicable glitches.

Name: steve lancour
Company: lancour and associates, inc.
Webpage:
Email: stevel@lancour.com
Experience: 20 years databases, 10 years SCO/other Unices
Agree: Y
Comment: If user directories and files have been segrated from operating system directories and files it will be almost always faster and certainly safer to backup, load the OS from scratch and re-load user directories and files from backup than to properly research and prepare for the implications of an IPU.

Name: Bela Lubkin
Company: SCO
Webpage:
Email: belal@sco.com
Experience: 15
Agree: N
Comment: I don't agree with the choices offered. Personally, if I had the time to spend, I would: back up (and verify); do IPU; look around, try to decide whether it did a good job; do a fresh install if necessary. My answer is "it varies", not one of the choices offered by this form.

Name: Michael Brown
Company: The Kingsway Group
Webpage: www.tkg.ca
Email: mike@tkg.ca
Experience: Hands on with UNIX from 1981
Agree: Y
Comment: IPU has been a timesaver in certain circumstances, usually a customer that we have originally installed and supported, with a "simple" setup. No complex driver/network/netscape/ sendmail hand modifications, maybe just a lot of user accounts, custom .profiles, .forwards, printers ... In this scenario IPU saves money and generally works.

On more complex configurations I prefer to do a clean install and reconfigure everything by hand to take full advantage of any new features.

At sites that have been set up by someone else we always do a fresh install.

AND, I always make and test a BackupEdge tape and RecoverEdge2 diskette set first.

Name: Jack Hill
Company: jackatakdotcom
Webpage:
Email: sconews@nanniandjack.com
Experience: 30 with mainframes, 13 with sco unix
Agree: Y
Comment: Too many variables that folks change when they set a system up... makes for VERY difficult scripting in IPU, so I would MUCH rather do a fresh install and have time for a party later the same day!

Name: Ian Wilson
Company: Infotop Limited
Webpage: http://www.infotop.co.uk/
Email: scobloke@infotop.co.uk
Experience: Unix since 1991
Agree: N
Comment: In my experience, whether an IPU is better than a fresh install depends on the specific OS versions involved and other circumstances.

To upgrade the O/S on production servers from one version to another my approach is to test an IPU on a non-production server, and based on the results of that, decide on IPU or fresh install.

For a bunch of RedHat Linux systems, generally the IPUs were faster and less work. However it was necessary to manually tweak the results to remove the odd duplicated packages and, in most cases, to manually migrate the config files from Apache 1.3 to 2.0 format. Where the new OS didn't fit the old partitions I did a fresh install, rather than repartition then IPU.

With well documented single-application SCO OpenServer systems I usually choose a fresh install.

Advance testing and pre-planning for post-install tests and fallback are the key for me.

Name: Bill Brier
Company: BCS Technology Limited
Webpage: www.bcstechnology.net
Email: steggy@bcstechnology.net
Experience: 18 years in business, 33 years in computers
Agree: Y
Comment: At one time I used to do IPU's. However, I had an IPU go awry about 2-1/2 years ago, moving a client from OSR5.0.5 to 5.0.6. The IPU crapped out about 75 percent of the way through, the machine bent over, barfed and died. After restarting it on a boot floppy and poking around, the cause was clear: the IPU had consumed all of the root filesystem space, and evidently no one at SCO had considered that such a possibility existed. That is, there was *NO* means of recovery, because resizing the root filesystem division was not an option. Bottom line was the machine was rendered unbootable from the hard drive.

Fortunately, I had made (and verified) two backups of the entire machine. So I started from bare metal with a fresh install. After considering the work that was involved, I concluded that precious little time would have been saved with an IPU. I have not done an IPU since and unless the client points some sort of firearm at my cranial area, I will stick to FI's when it's time to upgrade the OS.

Name: Sesso
Company: ...
Webpage: http://homerize.com/draw/sesso.php
Email: Sesso3837@yahoo.com
Experience: ...
Agree: N

Comment: Great site.

Here's a form where you can express YOUR opinion: