RE: Core 122 updates

["Kienker, Fred" <fkienker@at4b.com>]

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Of course, just reloading from scratch and restoring a backup would be 
the best option. However, when you are remotely maintaining systems that 
are hundreds or thousands of kilometers (miles) away, let's just say 
this is "Not An Option".

Some of these systems have been in place for several years and the 
hardware is, shall we say, antique. Because of this, we are downloading 
backups of Core 120, installing 120 onto replacement hardware, restoring 
the 120 backup, updating to 122, making a backup of the 122 settings, 
reinstalling 122, and then finally restoring the 122 backup. When this 
is all done, we have our current hardware, running 122 with the new 
partition layouts and new keys which we then ship to the remote site. 
People there can swap the cables from the old to the new machines. It's 
a lot of steps, but it solves all the problems you have brought up. With 
the replacement Dell hardware, we can do "bare metal" installations 
remotely, which we can't do with the current Dell hardware, and 
hopefully not have to *EVER* do this again.

With systems that have large enough boot partitions, we are delaying 
replacement until the really old hardware is done. But we have seen 
enough unexplained "events" on these systems that we have resorted to 
updating from the command line rather than the GUI. There have been 
several which wound up with "blank" /boot folders. I have not been able 
to discern why this is happening. But if we check for the blank /boot 
folders, and don't reboot, we can recover from this. When it happens, we 
move the mine file from "122" back to "120" and rerun the 120 > 121/122 
update. So far, it has always worked correctly the second time, and the 
system is left in a usable state. If we come up with any kind of idea as 
to what causes this, I will certainly report this back to this list.

Fred

-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Tremer <michael.tremer(a)ipfire.org> 
Sent: 3 August, 2018 04:14
To: Tom Rymes <trymes(a)rymes.com>; Kienker, Fred <fkienker(a)at4b.com>
Cc: development <development(a)lists.ipfire.org>
Subject: Re: Core 122 updates

On Thu, 2018-08-02 at 23:41 -0400, Tom Rymes wrote:
> 
> 
> On Aug 2, 2018, at 2:58 PM, Kienker, Fred <fkienker(a)at4b.com> wrote:
> 
> <snip>
> 
> > Michaels posting on the website about maybe it is time for a 
clean reinstall is very much to the point. But this is very hard to 
do with these older systems. Im not sure it is possible to install 122 
then restore a backup from 120, but I may well be wrong.
> 
> Fred,
> 
> Id advise against installing an older backup to a newer system if 
you can avoid it. Why not install 120 as a clean install, restore the 
backup, and then upgrade. Will the 120 clean install not have a larger 
/boot?

Actually, this is a good point.

Configuration wise it doesn't make a difference but certificates that 
have been generated with MD5 should be renewed and that is probably most 
easy to do with a new installation from scratch.

Best,
-Michael

> 
> Tom