In-Place Upgrade from 10.5 Server to 10.6 Server

[dstranathan]

I have a dedicated Xserve running Retrospect Server 8. The server is running Mac OS X Server version 10.5.8 (Leopard Server). The server also provides 2 other services, including both SUS (Apple Software Update) and DeployStudio (via NetBoot NetRestore). My Xserve mounts a network SAN volume which stores all of Retrospect's Media Sets.

 

Normally I would never consider an in-place upgrade. I generally follow tried and true best practices when it comes to patches, updates and upgrades. I usually opt for clean installs regarding my Mac OS X server infrastructure. But Apple has touted that In-Place upgrades are actually quite feasible these days. Not to sound lazy or anything, but it sure would be nice if I could just install the OS X 10.6 Server upgrade from the DVD installer, put in a new license code, fire up Retrospect's backup engine and get back to work.

 

My main concern is how Retrospect 8 will respond to the OS upgrades. Nothing will change in terms of the Retro binaries, versions and paths. The server will maintain it's original hostname, IP address, serial numbers, licenses and other critical resources (including the NAS volume with my Media Sets). Im not worried about my SUS and NetBoot services, Im sure they will be fine. Its Retrospect that I need to focus on.

 

A couple key questions before I make a upgrade decision:

 

1) Generally speaking, has anyone had any luck running Retrospect 8 under Mac OS X 10.6.x (Snow Leopard Server)?

 

2) Has anyone done an in-place upgrade of Mac OS X Server on a Retrospect 8 server?

 

 

Comments and feed back are greatly appreciated.

Edited May 4, 2010 by Guest

[swalker]

I did it last week. The engine seemed to die a lot.

Then I set the kernel to run 32-bit. Seems OK.

Look here for 32/64 bit info:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3773

 

Comments welcome...

[dstranathan]

Thanks Stewart. Appreciate the info.

 

Can you post some details on your environment?

 

• Did you upgrade from 10.5 to 10.6? Server or "regular" OS X?

• What hardware are you running on?

• What other services are you running?

• are you staying on the current OS or are you considering reverting back?

• What was the driving factors behind the OS upgrade?

 

 

 

[swalker]

• Upgrade from 10.5.8 to 10.6.3 Server

• 1st generation 4 core Mac Pro + ATTO UL5D + one Ultrium 2 tape drive; 4 GB memory; 4 drives, 2 in mirror RAID

• Services: AFP, SMB, Web, wee bit of Mail, cronjobs & custom daemons for data logging PLUS Retrospect for 20 mixed clients. Lightly loaded server with only a few clients for the other services in a small workgroup

• Staying on 10.6.3 Server

• General cleanup of shell scripts, re-compiling of daemons, had waited long enough for 10.6 to be relatively bug-free. Had considered waiting for next (no doubt better & due soon I think) iteration of Retrospect, but jumped anyway.

 

Have had sundry troubles with Retrospect on 10.5.8, so I have to keep minding it. Eager for next version to make it more trustworthy.

Edited May 5, 2010 by Guest