Upgrade 6.4-stable to 7.3

[Erik Trulsson]

On Tue, Jul 27, 2010 at 03:02:48PM +0100, Michael Doyle wrote:
> I would like to upgrade a server that is currently running version 6.4  
> up to version 7.3
> Having looked at /usr/src/UPDATING on a 7.3 machine, I don't see any  
> major problems flagged.
> 
> Given that I have console access to this machine, and I want to  
> preserve the user directories (it's our mail server)
> would I be better off doing a source upgrade or a binary upgrade?

Since you are running 6.4-STABLE, I think you will have to do a source
upgrade. AFAIK binary upgrades are only supported when going from one
-RELEASE to another (so 6.4-RELEASE to 7.3-RELEASE should be possible
with a binary upgrade, 6.4-STABLE to 7.3-RELEASE would not.)


> 
> In the past, I've usually done a wipe-and-reinstall when moving  
> between major version numbers
> but I would rather avoid that this time around.
> 
> Also, would people recommend staying with version 7.3 or jumping all  
> the way to version 8.1 ?

Unless you have some specific reason to use 7.3 you might as well go
all the way up to 8.1. You should probably do it in two steps though - 
first from 6.4 to 7.3 and then from 7.3 to 8.1

Just remember to make good backups first, just in case something goes
wrong.  (There should not be any serious problems involved - the source
upgrades I have done from 6.x to 7.x and later from 7.x to 8.x were
fairly uneventful - but you never know what might happen.)


-- 
<Insert your favourite quote here.>
Erik Trulsson
ertr1013 at student.uu.se