Ubuntu do-release-upgrade on Google Compute Engine

Can I run the do-release-upgrade to upgrade my Ubuntu Google Compute Engine VM?

The VM image version is Ubuntu 14.04 now. And I would like to upgrade to Ubuntu 16.04 or 18.04.

回答1:

Yes you can, and as per the following document is also the preferred way because,

The ubuntu-release-upgrader package, provides do-release-upgrade, and is designed to handle quirks and transitions when moving between releases of Ubuntu.

This is because the Debian way is not supported by the Ubuntu developers.

If you followed the right steps, you will see a message similar to this:

System upgrade is complete.

Restart required 

To finish the upgrade, a restart is required. 
If you select 'y' the system will be restarted. 

**Continue [yN] y**
=== Command detached from window (Fri Feb 22 17:30:44 2019) ===
=== Command terminated normally (Fri Feb 22 17:30:54 2019) ===Connected, host 
fingerprint: ssh-rsa 0 C5:6B:DD:78:D2:BB:89:5B:A8:C7:AC:E7:32:52:F7:F2:F3:8D:DE:91:B6:F3:2D:DE:06:2A:EA:9A:50:34:A2:B5
Welcome to Ubuntu 16.04.6 LTS (GNU/Linux 4.4.0-142-generic x86_64)

 * Documentation:  https://help.ubuntu.com
 * Management:     https://landscape.canonical.com
 * Support:        https://ubuntu.com/advantage

In the Google images document page it explaines that,

If your instances run Ubuntu releases that are no longer supported,you are allowed to upgrade to a supported Ubuntu release.

One more thing, as @Martin mentioned. Is always a good idea to make create a snapshot of your disk prior to upgrading the the image version. And if you are not familiar with the do-release-upgrade full process, the following article will help you get started.

回答2:

think it should work, better take a snapshot before attempting to upgrade - because it really depends how customized the image is; or first try 16.04. in general, systemd changed a lot. or just use the ubuntu-1804-lts image... when having a startup script, you'd never be stuck with any container. this would extract the raw script: cat ~/.bash_history > startup.sh, after a manual setup.