How to upgrade a remote server from 8.10 to newer version?
- by DisgruntledGoat
I have a remote server still running Ubuntu 8.10 9.04 that I can only access via SSH.
If I run apt-get update I get a bunch of 404 errors on the packages. I've asked a few questions on Server Fault but got nowhere. Here's what I've done:
Run apt-get update which returns errors like:
  Err http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com intrepid/main Packages
  404 Not Found
  [and same for many other packages]
Run do-release-upgrade which returns:
  Checking for a new ubuntu release
  Failed Upgrade tool signature
  Failed Upgrade tool
  Done downloading
  extracting 'jaunty.tar.gz'
  Failed to extract
  Extracting the upgrade failed. There may be a problem with the network or with the server.
Edited /etc/update-manager/release-upgrades and changed from Prompt=normal to Prompt=lts (as suggested here). Running  do-release-upgrade after this returns:
  Checking for a new ubuntu release
  current dist not found in meta-release file
  No new release found
(Updated) I have followed the advice in this question and changed /etc/apt/sources.list to refer to jaunty instead of intrepid. However, that distro is not online anymore either. A comment there says I have to upgrade in chronological order...
So basically, it seems like I cannot upgrade because my current distro is out of date and not supported. Is there a way to upgrade direct to 10.x or 11.x? Note, as this is a server I only have command-line access.
UPDATE 24/11: I have managed to upgrade from 8.10 to 9.04. Ubuntu's EOL Upgrades page provides some alternate URLs for apt sources. I also needed to update /var/lib/update-manager/meta-release to point to the old-releases server too.
However, now I cannot upgrade from 9.04 to 9.10. Running do-release-upgrade produces the same error as #2 above, except it "Failed to fetch" (the URLs in meta-release are valid). The Ubuntu Jaunty upgrade page says it's necessary to upgrade using a CD image. I followed the instructions here, but it didn't work:
  A fatal error occurred 
  
  Please report this as a bug and include the files 
  /var/log/dist-upgrade/main.log and /var/log/dist-upgrade/apt.log in 
  your report. The upgrade is now aborted.  Your original sources.list
  was saved in  /etc/apt/sources.list.distUpgrade. 
  
  Traceback (most recent call last): 
  
  File "/tmp/tmp.JLhTwVUugb/karmic", line 7, in  
  sys.exit(main()) 
  
  File "/tmp/tmp.JLhTwVUugb/DistUpgradeMain.py", line 132, in main  if
  app.run(): 
  
  File "/tmp/tmp.JLhTwVUugb/DistUpgradeController.py", line 1590, in 
  run  return self.fullUpgrade() 
  
  File "/tmp/tmp.JLhTwVUugb/DistUpgradeController.py", line 1506, in 
  fullUpgrade  if not self.doPostInitialUpdate(): 
  
  File "/tmp/tmp.JLhTwVUugb/DistUpgradeController.py", line 762, in 
  doPostInitialUpdate  self.quirks.run("PostInitialUpdate") 
  
  File "/tmp/tmp.JLhTwVUugb/DistUpgradeQuirks.py", line 83, in run  for
  plugin in self.plugin_manager.get_plugins(condition): 
  
  File "/tmp/tmp.JLhTwVUugb/computerjanitor/plugin.py", line 167, in 
  get_plugins  filenames = self.get_plugin_files() 
  
  File "/tmp/tmp.JLhTwVUugb/computerjanitor/plugin.py", line 120, in 
  get_plugin_files  basenames = [x for x in os.listdir(dirname) 
  
  OSError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: './plugins'
It does say to report the bug, but since this is an old unsupported release I don't know if it's worth doing. However, is there a way round this, to upgrade from 9.04 to 9.10 (And then finally to 10.04 LTS.)