Hi, I have a small number of machines which are currently running slink. I'd like to upgrade them, at least to frozen and possibly even to woody.
The simple answer is apt-get (dist-)upgrade. However, there are a couple of issues with this. First, I pay for internet downloads, so I want to minimise download time, and second, at least one of the machines is not connected to the internet. The machines' configurations are pretty much identical, so I would like to download the necessary files *once* and upgrade all the machines offline. The problem is knowing how to get apt to work this way. I think that what I could do is 1. apt-get dist-upgrade --download-only on one machine 2. Transfer the downloaded files to all machines 3. apt-get dist-upgrade --no-download on all the machines. The only difficulty I have is with step (2) - is it enough to transfer the /var/cache/apt/archives directory? If not, what is the best way? More generally, what is the best way for me to keep a number of machines reasonably up to date, given 1. The only CDs I can get are slink (2.1r4) until potato hits the UK CD market. 2. I have limited network bandwidth. 3. The network bandwidth costs money. Thanks in advance, Paul Moore.
