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> For background, the current server is an old ebay sourced 8x Xeon with 8GB RAM Dell. It’s actually pretty adequate, but OS upgrades require I put shoes on and

• wahern 7y ago
  Forget console. I've been upgrading OpenBSD and Linux systems remotely for ages with just the standard, runtime upgrade procedures. For example, as best I can tell my main OpenBSD system has been continuously upgraded since 2012 using the standard unattended[1] upgrade instructions, plus occasional housekeeping to remove unused system files (e.g. old libc versions). Between 2000 and 2012 there were a few changes (e.g. moving among leased and colocated hardware) requiring some reinstalls, but I otherwise followed the same pattern. I don't think I've ever maintained a single Linux instance for that long, but I've definitely upgraded across 2, possibly 3 Ubuntu LTS releases. [1] Which is actually a manual process that requires attention, it just doesn't require console access--you're not rebooting into an installer.
  • bayindirh 7y ago
    I've installed Debian 4.0 beta-1 and upgraded it to until 8.x. It had no problems but I had to switch to 64bit and there was no reliable procedure or method at that time, so I reinstalled 8. Currently the same system is running Debian 10 testing. So it's possible to just upgrade blindly with no console. However, a remote console is nice and useful to fix network related stuff (e.g. a switch dies or you just mess the network settings).