Topic: Why Upgrade?

[Cyrus Bharda]

Hello all,

Well we are using 5.5 and have been for more than 6 months now and are more than happy with what it does.

Now has come the time where we will be looking at moving from dial-up to some sort of broadband connection where we will use a hardware router for connection.

So I thought this would be a good time to do a backup and then blow away the old 5.5 box and install 5.6.

My questions are:

1. Why should I upgrade from 5.5 to 5.6, because 5.5 seems to do the job fine and we don't have any problems with it, so my thoughts are, if it aint broken, don't fix it.

2. Is it as simple as doing a backup, then doing a fresh install of 5.6, apply the update and then restore the backup, or are there issues involved that I have not yet read about, I did do a search and saw that a lot of people seem to have problems whilst upgrading so I have decided to just to a clean install. I also use Backup2ws, will the 911job be enough to recover all the user accounts, passwords, mail, etc.

3. We will be looking at some sort of VPN, I do not know any details at the moment because I have had absolutely no experience with VPN's. I have been reading that 5.6 has some problems in this area, would it be best to stick with 5.5 just for that reason alone?

Other than that SME has been an absolutely wonderful solution and I applaud Mitel and their staff for developing and releasing such a wonderful product!!

Cyrus Bharda

[Ray Mitchell]

Cyrus

> 1. Why should I upgrade from 5.5 to 5.6

Well because it's better !
Read the 5.6 release notes at
http://www.e-smith.org/article.php3&mode=threaded&order=0
Some rpms only work on 5.6 so if you want the functionality you need to upgrade.
5.5 is still supported so you can safely continue using it if you want ie security fixes will continue to be released, but only till the next major release !

> 2. Is it as simple as doing a backup, then doing a fresh
> install of 5.6, apply the update and then restore the backup,
> or are there issues involved that I have not yet read about

Yes, but !
If you do a clean OS instal you will need to reinstal any add on rpms as well.
Doing an upgrade will leave the installed rpms in place.
I don't think there should be any problem doing an upgrade from 5.5 to 5.6 other than having ample memory which seems to be between 128 to 256Mb of RAM (preferably 256Mb).
Mitel recommends to disable any custom-templates and reinstate them after the upgrade is complete and your server is working OK as standard.. That way an incompatible template won't be able to crash your system. Put the templates back in one by one and test to see if OK each time.

> 3. Re VPN I have been reading that 5.6 has some
> problems in this area, would it be best to stick with 5.5
> just for that reason alone?

5.6 VPN is working OK for me with Update4.
My "guess" is that people are having problems when routers or other firewalls are connected, my systems are standard gateways directly connected to modems and work OK.

> Other than that SME has been an absolutely wonderful solution
> and I applaud Mitel and their staff for developing and
> releasing such a wonderful product!!

I agree, pity that "Rhys of ethernet woes" can't work that out yet !!

Regards
Ray

[Cyrus Bharda]

Ray,

> Well because it's better !
> Read the 5.6 release notes at
> http://www.e-smith.org/article.php3&mode=threaded&order=0

The only reasons why I should upgrade is:

> Major features in this release
> This release is a significant update to improve compatibility with current server
> hardware and client operating system releases.

Which I will not be changing any of my hardware in the upgrade.........

> The Linux kernel has been upgraded to the 2.4 kernel series, and the
> Macintosh, Windows and IMAP (mail folder access) server applications have
> been updated to current releases.

None of which I use.........

> This release uses the "ext3" journalling filesystem for file storage, greatly
> improving recovery time after power failure or emergency shutdown and
> improving file system reliability.

Maybe a little pro for me, but not much. The only thing that would be better is imporving recovery time, but my 5.5 has never had a problem and so I have never had to do a rush reckovery job, I have done recoveries to see if they work, and they do fine, I can do a full reinstall and restore from backup and have my 5.5 up and running after 2.5 hours which is well within my threshold.

> The firewalling code has been upgraded to include stateful packet inspection.
> This release also contains a number of minor updates and corrections.

This I have no idea what "stateful packet inspection" so obviously I have not yet needed it, so why should I need it.

> Some rpms only work on 5.6 so if you want the functionality you need to          > upgrade.

Which means a hassle for me to find out which ones work and which dont and find the newer ones to replace the ones that dont, more work for me!

> 5.5 is still supported so you can safely continue using it if you want ie security > fixes will continue to be released, but only till the next major release !

Which does the job fine, untill the next release.

Ray overall it seems like a lot of work and a lot of hasle for very little gain, it works fine and I know it works fine, whereas if I did upgrade to 5.6 then I would have a lot of testing and re-testing and reconfiguring of custom templates and such that I do not have time for, so thanks for your help, but I think I will stick with 5.5 for the time being just because I know everything that I want to do with it works fine and I will not have any problems with rpm's or custom templates.

No doubt when I do decide to lay my p133 box to rest and get something better then I will use 5.6.

Thanks for the help,

Cyrus Bharda

[Paul]

>I agree, pity that "Rhys of ethernet woes" can't work that out yet !!

Rhys is an idiot that will not listen to anybody's help or advice.  This guy thinks he knows it all and when you try to tell him how to overcome a problem he just dissagrees with everyone.  I tried to help him and just gave up.  You guys are a lot more patient than I am.

[Cyrus Bharda]

Paul,

Not just that but its like he is a total noobie when it comes to computer networking, christ sake he doesnt know the basics, and he expects it to work without 1 hitch.

My advise to Rhys is to get a couple of books, "Networking for Dummies" perhaps and read them. Instead we have these wonderfully pateint people trying to teach him basic networking principles on a forum, which must be extremely hard, but good luck to you guys.

It is a very good sign when you see people trying to teach someone a subject like this on a forum like this, means there are a lot of genualy kind people who watch this space.

As for me, I would just be pointing him towards some good sites with lots of information on it, but thats just me.

Anyway enough ranting and raving, ITS FRIDAY AVRO! I'm off to the PUB!

Cyrus Bharda

[Bill Talcott]

I agree with you Cyrus. 5.5 works fine for us, and I don't think we'd see any improvement by going to 5.6. We're also using a lower-end system, so it would probably slow things down some too. Not to mention that some people are still having some problems with PPTP. In my situation (and yours too apparently), I honestly feel that 5.5 is the best option.

On the upgrade note though, we started at 4.1.2. I upgraded that to 5.0, then to 5.5 once Damien released his SASL contrib. The only problems I've had were due to custom templates, where the original templates had changed between versions. Removing/rewriting my custom versions fixed everything.

[Ray Mitchell]

Dear All
I'm not saying that one MUST upgrade, simply the reasons why one would.

I agree also that if the need is not there, and all the functionality you require is in the current version you use, and particularly with regards to hardware specification (ie you run sme on older low end hardware (P133 etc)), then upgrading to v5.6 may not be and probably is not the most appropriate thing to do. With ANY new version of ANY OS there will always be some bugs, so its not a bad idea to wait until they are sorted out and then upgrade.

It's really a case of look at your situation and decide what is required or not required.

On the other hand if there is NO reason NOT to upgrade then WHY NOT upgrade.
We are now at the stage where some significant bugs have been fixed and generally speaking the v5.6 server is definitely better in many aspects, although to the end user these changes may not appear to be significant or even important.

To me the ext3 file system is a major improvement and a quite desirable feature in a server, and if I can have it, then why not !!

Regards
Ray Mitchell

[Gordon]

We recently upgraded 5.5u6 machine to 5.6u but had the following problems
Installation completed --> with no errors messages
Emergency disk built --> with no error messages
Reboot --> kernel panic
Boot from Floppy --> Kernel panic
Used a emergency disk from a clean 5.6u install --> booted

Found
The emergency disk, from the upgrade, had no initrd.img file.
the /boot directory had no initrd-2.4.18-5.img file
lilo.conf was incomplete

Copied the initrd.img from the working floppy to /boot and renamed
Corrected the lilo.conf
issued lilo command

rebooted fine

Is there a problem in the post-upgrade scripts or a technique that can be applied at the end of the upgrade but before the reboot to check and correct errors?

Any comments

Many Thanks

[Kelvin]

Hi Cyrus, Bill, Ray and others.

Here's My 2 bits worth :-

Why I would want to go to 5.6 :-
1. ext3 -> less corruption due to power failures
2. kernel 2.4.x -> better USB support including USB UPSes
3. better hardware support -> most controllers I work with are now autodetected and installed at install time
4. large local file support (although samba network transfers still suffers from the 2GB limit)
5. support and new development for 5.1.2 almost non-existent (I skipped 5.5 altogether as I was in the same situation as you -> ie. did not see significant improvements between 5.1.2 and 5.5 except for mailfront). However, I actually felt it was disappointing that there were no more new devs. for 5.1.2 as it has been a rock solid server platform with very few problems. Plus the hardware requirements was lower too.

Kelvin

[Mya Pinon]

I too mourn the passing of a fine generation of E-SMITH distibutions.
The blades would be a very useful way of applying these security updates.
Some features like the MP3 Jukebox, I really miss.

I guess what I am trying to say is that for all the good changes that are in
these updates, Mitel Networks is loosing the GPL focus and is a lot
more like Microsoft than was E-Smith.

My hat is off to you fine people at E-Smith, keep up the good work,
wherever you find yourselves working in the future.

[Dean Turner]

The MP3 Juke box works fine on 5.6 .. mines installed fine and is working.

5.6 woks fine for me .. but yet to try the VPN sections this week !

Fist install of 5.6 was very hit and miss... but 5.6 with u4 works fine.

Dean