Upgrading to Ubuntu Server 16.04 – Part 2

As mentioned, I’m currently upgrading my Ubuntu 14.04 servers to 16.04, and I’ve just completed upgrading my development server. Actually, I use the term “upgrade” loosely as I opted for a clean install. This took a bit longer, but I’m happier with the end result, knowing that the server will be starting with a clean slate.

The actions I took went a bit like this:

1. Backup my project files and any related data such as databases.
2. Backup my crontab.
3. Backup my dot files.
4. Backup my bin directory, containing build scripts etc.
5. Backup the /etc/network/interfaces file.
6. Backup the /etc/fstab file, the server had a bunch of drives attached.
7. Backup the /etc/nginx folder containing config files for all development sites.
8. Create a 16.04 virtual machine.
9. Restore and test all backups on virtual machine.
10. Happy that the backups were good, perform a clean install of 16.04 on development server.
11. Restore and test all backups.
12. Archive any old (unwanted) project files.

And that’s it. Barring any major malfunctions, my development server should be good for at least a couple more years. Next job, tackle my production servers.