2008-05-21

Gibbon died, long live Heron

As all Linux aware people know, new version of Ubuntu distribution codenamed Hardy Heron was released on April 24th, 2008. This version is tagged "LTS" (Long Time Support) so I decided to upgrade my current Ubuntu powered homebrew router (very old PC with Ubuntu running on it) from 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon) to 8.04. I did some research on this matter before I took serious steps so upgrade was not major PITA type of thing. I followed instructions shown in official Ubuntu documentation site. I took my chances and did remote upgrade through SSH although system notified me that problems may occure. After answering few simple questions upgrade process finished with rebooting server. SSH session ended and I waited for a few minutes to login again.
A moment later I tried to SSH back with no luck. Machine responded only to PING requests so I decided to check what went wrong as soon as I get home. I, actually, hate any of hardware-centric tasks related to the router, but I had to do something cause staying disconnected was not an option. Infamous mini ATX box travelled from a dustiest corner straight on to a worktable. I hooked USB-to-PS/2-to-AT keyboard, display up with a hope to see something that I could deal with.
System booted, messages ran through a screen and stopped barfing short error about a bad superblock out. It was kinda intersting because I couldn't remember changing hard drive configuration. After comparing df command output with /etc/fstab contents I saw that filesystem label changed from /dev/hdb1 to /dev/sdb1. So, I had to edit only one letter in /etc/fstab file to make my system boot.
It was no big change, but it took some nerves and time to figure it out. Hope that helps you too.