Don't upgrade unless you need to!
Operating system upgrades are risky. If something goes wrong during the update, your entire server and all of your data on it may be lost.
Ubuntu 16.04 will still receive full support, including patches, security updates, and bug fixes, until 2021.
Preparing to Upgrade
Important: Take a server snapshot at your provider before upgrading.
Once you've taken a snapshot of your server, SSH in to your server as root and run the following commands to make sure your server is ready to be upgraded to a new version of Ubuntu.
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade sudo dpkg --configure -a
If any of the above commands fail or print error messages, do not proceed with upgrading to a newer Ubuntu version.
Performing the Upgrade
To upgrade your Ubuntu 16.04 server to Ubuntu 18.04, SSH in to your server as root and run the following command:
sudo do-release-upgrade -d -f DistUpgradeViewNonInteractive
Once the upgrade is complete, reboot your server.
If the upgrade completes without errors, take a new snapshot of your server so you'll have a snapshot of the server after the upgrade.
If the upgrade fails or encounters any errors, restore your server to the snapshot you made before you began the upgrade.
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