So, after many years of operation it finally was time to upgrade Ubuntu from 10.x LTS (forgot the number!) to next - and ups: there are 2 new generations. Has it really been that long..
And then the problems began!
Having a week off, I decided it was now or never... Server is running on 5 yrs old AMD motherboard, 2 x 500GB system disks in soft RAID1, and 4 x 2TB datadisk in Raid 5 on Adaptec 5405 controller. All fine and dandy.
Server primarily used for backup of family pc data, documents and most important photos (Samba server shares), misc backup of hosted website service, Twonky media server for music and movie collection.
Running nice and stedy and disks protected as described, I started out by checking usual upgrades - done - and then started upgrade to 12.04 LTS.
For a long time it seemed fine, and then process stopped........ Hmmm. Had to reboot, and actually the server came to life - semingly all well. Then tried to do updates - and - NOT possible. Some locking on update processes.
Extensive googling and various attempts did not solve problem (remove lock files and stuff), and final suggestion found was: do a reinstall..
BIG MISTAKE! Being over confident, very sporadic Ubuntu user, I did just that - end THEN all seemed lost :-(
I learned following the rally hard way: make a copy of /etc before doing anything - there were lots of disk available for that, so f..... DO it!
...I did reinstall, and all old setup was cleared...and server would not boot on RAID1 set.
Now at least I did ONE smart hing. Having access to 2 180GB SSD disks, I set those up as new System RAID1 on in BIOS, and decided to install Ubuntu on those to prevent further damage to data. Also removed the Adaptec card - just to be sure.
Seems Ubuntu after v. 11.something dropped all DMRAID support, so to get anything working had to break the new RAID1 set (yes I really did) - and try install on this. By now I decided to go for 14.04 LTS as all setup was already lost.
Succeeded in getting Ubuntu Desktop installed on one SSD, and at least was able to verify that all data was present and safe. ...relief!!!
- OK. end of first day!
Second day...
I want RAID - so what to do. Googling - trying - trying again - do dice. Was not able to get past partitioning with Ubuntu Desktop at all - no way to install on 'fakeraid' - and not able to get setup of softraid to work either. WTF!
WHY did they destroy Ubuntu!!
Next - it seemed the 'easy' way was now to install Ubuntu Server edition instead. And actually this was possible (after deleting BIOS raid - setting up BIOS raid again and other retries) I DID get 14.04 server up and running - but - no GUI.
Sic! I'm NOT command line guy, so next on google 'how to install gui on ubuntu 14.04 server'. Found:
Install GUI on Ubuntu server 14.04 Trusty Tahr
And did go for full Unity. And SUCCESS - at last! ....not so much! MORE problems ahead.
First: When inserting Adaptec adapter - server would no longer boot... 'Install OS ..and so on...'. F...!!
Again google - but absolutely NO help. Found a few unanswered questions, so pretty much on my own here... Finally - I decided to break OS-RAID1 in BIOS, and set boot to first SSD disk - and THAT did the trick. Server still recognized disk as being a RAID1 set, and actually started up showing all drives (as ad-hoc mounts) and data.
End of day 2.
Third day...
OK - the server is normally placed on top of a closet. While problems got worse, it was placed by desk and connected to my KVM switch, but next was of course to get some remote access up and runnning. NEW problems ahead...
Conclusion: UNITY STINKS!!! No way to get remote operation to work...
Had to reinstall 14.04 LTS Server, and following above again go for minimal gnome... Enable root, Install Nomachine server - and all works
Rest of day - doing extra backups to eksternal USB HDD before actually starting work on disks! At least - by end of day, the server seems stable and predictable... at last!
Fourth day...
OK - DISK time... OS RAID1 running, RAID5 data set running - but not mounting, old RAID1 running - to be cleared and reinstalled..
Again - suddenly remembered - and FSTAB did the mount trick.
Not much work done - recovering from severe Ubuntu depression and almost abandoning all together for a WinServer... Did a few more backups, and the - on to rights!
Oh - can't open Users Settings - never completed loading.... No, I'll go to bed..
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/FakeRaidHowto
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=945991
info:
/dev/mapper/pdc_cfacadehah1 = / = UUID: b55a784f-8bb1-41df-a417-6cf2dff4fe8f
/dev/mapper/pdc_cfacadehah2 = swap part
/dev/mapper/pdc_cfacadehah5 = active swap = UUID = a2ed560b-dfbd-4c13-a582-86bbd45bd4be
phys:
Fifth day...
Got an idea - tried Users Settings as 'user' - and it works fine. Ahh..... That's what the message on root login means 'this is no TTY device, please correct...'. Desktop / gnome not running properly - so did the chnages as myself - and now on to rights.. (access rights lost completely as well of course...)