If you download and boot one of the images I linked in my post, you'll be running from the CD (or USB drive) - you don't need to have any type of working system. You should then be able to mount the disk partition(s) on the non-working system, using the CD/USB drive, and copy your data over.hockey97 said:
You won't need to upgrade right away - you'll be running the newest release of whatever version you install. For a production system, 9.x is probably your best bet right now (10.0 is too new). 8.x might be better if that's the version you're used to (I'm running 8.4 here).
Often, via a (sometimes virtual) "forklift upgrade" - get the base system and whatever ports / packages are needed running and configured on a new server / new VM, then when everything has been tested, copy the user data over. That's where having a clean separation of "user stuff" and "system stuff" comes into play - it's a lot easier to back up an entire directory tree and restore it on the new box, rather than having to look at each file individually. It helps to have a formal plan in place, to keep track of what needs to be done and in what order. Here's a lightly-sanitized version of a file called "the big plan.txt" from a recent upgrade here:
Code:
The Big Plan (X = done, o = pending):
X Changes to web sites need to be frozen and the contents of all of the stuff on old-box
copied to new-box.
X virtualhost (old-box) and new-virtualhost (new-box) swap IP addresses, flash-cutting all
web services except www.example.com, box.example.com and samplesite / samplesite2 to
the new system. Requires changes to rc.conf (and reboots) on both, and (probably) changes
to the httpd virtualhost config on both.
X www (old-box) and new-www (new-box) do the same, via the same method.
X Any changes necessary for new-box to take over as box need to be made (virtusertable,
access, etc. on new-box; remote mounts of /usr/local/src and /sysprog on all other box-
es, and so on). Also, httpd.conf on old-box / httpd-vhost.conf on new-box need to be
told the new hostnames.
X old-box and new-box swap primary IP addresses, and .226 gets renamed to "old-box" in
DNS. Re-mount remote mounts of /usr/local/src and /sysprog (using box instead of new-
box in fstab). Remote management addresses (oob.box, oob.new-box) swap and one gets
renamed to "oob.old-box" in DNS. Note that as part of this, oob.box is renumbering
from .4 to .48
At this point new-box is effectively box and the only thing running on old-box is the
samplesite / samplesite2 web page.
X edit the backup scripts on old- and new-box to have the correct hostname in both the
script name / cronjob and the name of the dumpfile. Rename the existing backup dumpfiles
so that they reflect the new reality.
X Reconfigure old-box to not run named (rc.conf / resolv.conf).
X Go through DNS configs and get rid of all old-*/new-* stuff EXCEPT old-virtualhost and
clean up any other stuff in DNS labeled "TODO".
X Deconfigure all un-necessary services (nfs, shell, ftp, yadda, yadda) on old-box.
X Remove almost all of /var/www except for what's needed to run the samplesite stuff and
to say "you're digging in the wrong place" when trying to access the main server.
X Move old-box /usr/local/src into /var/tmp/old-local-src
X Remove alias IP address for old-www (but NOT old-virtualhost) from old-box.
X Prune httpd configuration on old-box to remove all but samplesite / samplesite2, delete
SSL keys, no-longer-needed rewrites / access, etc. and restart.
X Clean up httpd.conf and children on both old-box and new-box
X Migrate old-* to new subnet allocated by Bob
X Get rid of 234.168.192.in-addr.arpa (DRAC3/XT stuff) and matching forward (example.com)
references to those addresses
X Remove the old-* stuff from DNS.
o [Eventually] Hand HJ the old-box box and a check and tell him it's time that server
gets a job and moves out.Note that this was a bit more complex than what you'll be doing, as one set of web sites (samplesite/samplesite2 in my plan) were staying on the old system, since it was being handed to a user who is going to move it to another hosting facility.
