The discussion revolves around updating an old Discourse installation, with user bayardo.rivas seeking advice on upgrading a 1-year-old instance. pfaffman reassures that multi-year upgrades are generally safe, though custom themes may be affected by the Ember upgrade. bayardo.rivas confirms the server runs Ubuntu 20.04, and pfaffman suggests migrating to a new server for testing before cutover, referencing a guide on moving via rsync. Ed_S emphasizes taking a backup, and eisammy recommends using snapshots in addition to backups.
I have the task to update the Discourse forum, I don’t know the current version yet, but what I suppose is that have 1 year old without updating. Some of my doubts are:
Is there any special steps to update this server to don’t break it?
Do I have to update step-by-step, one version at the time to finally get the latest version.
I am worry about any database change (version or structure).
I will appreciate any advice and comments.
I’ve done upgrades that were multiple years behind without incident.
Some big changes came with the upgrade to Ember, so if you have custom themes they could be an issue.
If your OS is old then it could be a good time to move to a new server, which will make it easy to test before you switch over.
Thanks, I will upgrade the server. Now it is running Ubuntu 20.04.
It’s not required to upgrade 20.04, but if you’re really concerned about the upgrade, moving to a new server lets you test before you switch over to it. You can use a reserved ip to make zero-time switch to the new server.
Be sure to take a backup before you start, and download it somewhere safe. Preferably make a second copy too.
Enable and create snapshots aside backups from dash!