Topic: Upgrade from 3.1 to 4?

[Mike Stoddart]

Has anyone upgraded from 3.1 to 4? If so, could you post your experiences in this thread, and any suggestions that you would make from your upgrade? I'm thinking of upgrading, but not if there's a good chance I'll lose existing data and/or existing configuration. In that case, I'll take the "if it ain't broke...." mentality.

Thanks

[Dan]

I've done it on one machine.  I ran a backup from the e-smith-manager, installed 4.0 final, and restored the backup.  Everything seems to be working properly.  I didn't, however, have a large number of ibays or users on that machine.

[Charlie Brady]

Mike Stoddart wrote:

> I'm thinking of upgrading, but not if
> there's a good chance I'll lose existing data and/or existing
> configuration. In that case, I'll take the "if it ain't
> broke...." mentality.

The problem with adopting the "it it ain't broke ..." mentality is that you are stuck forevermore with unmaintained software.

The new version 4.0 adds new features you may want (printer support, groups, email forwarding), and is also more modular, allowing new features to be added without re-installation of the system.

Charlie

[stephen noble]

try your backup on a spare machine first and decide for yourself ...
fwiw i'm using 4 ...

[Mike Stoddart]

I don't have a spare machine unfortunately. So, when I backup my server, where does the data go?

Is the process:

Backup using E-Smith Manager
Upgrade to 4.0 (not full re-install)
Restore using E-Smith Manager

Will this restore all my original Users and Ibays, complete with files stored via Samba??

I need a clean, painless upgrade to 4.0. If there's any danger in this process of losing data, I'll have to stick with 3.1. I don't really need to the new functionality; I don't have a printer, and I'm the only user - I use itat home. For example, I use a Web interface to read my email, so I have data files for that stored on the server somewhere - it doesn't use the unix mail dirs.

Thanks

[Charlie Brady]

Mike Stoddart wrote:

> I don't have a spare machine unfortunately. So, when I backup
> my server, where does the data go?

The "backup" menu option creates a file on the machine you run the web browser on when you access the e-smith-manager. So you should do that on a machine with plenty of free space.

> Is the process:
>
> Backup using E-Smith Manager
> Upgrade to 4.0 (not full re-install)
> Restore using E-Smith Manager

No, if you use the "upgrade" option, you won't need to restore using the e-smith manager - your system will be ready to run as is.

Your alternative, and the one currently supported by e-smith, is to do:

Backup using e-smith manager
Install 4.0
Restore using e-smith manager

> Will this restore all my original Users and Ibays, complete
> with files stored via Samba??

Yes.

Charlie

[Mike Stoddart]

Ah, now I understand! Thanks for the info!

[Mike Stoddart]

I just successfully completed the upgrade from 3.1 to 4.0. The whole process was extremely smooth! Thankyou!