@anonym can I hire you for that job and if so, how much do you charge? I need to upgrade from 16.04 to 20.04.
Contact me "D.Liesenfeld" at "gmail dot com".

I managed to complete a non-supported dist-upgrade from Ubuntu 18.04 to 20.04 with Plesk installed on 3 separate hosted VPS instances. There were 3 major issues:

1) DNS resolution broke completely for all hosted domains, rendering them inaccessible both internally and externally. Resolution: alter OPTIONS="-u bind" in /etc/default/named to OPTIONS="-f -t /var/named/run-root -c /etc/named.conf -u bind -n 2".

2) Firewall rules could no longer be managed in Plesk, because it said the iptables package was not installed, even though it was. Resolution: ln -s /usr/sbin/iptables /sbin/iptables.

3) (On just one older server) Users could not log into Roundcube owing to Dovecot errors. Resolution: openssh dhparam 2048 > /opt/psa/etc/dhparams2048.pem - then alter the line in /etc/dovecot/conf.d/11-plesk-security-ssl.conf from ssl_dh=</opt/psa/etc/dhparams1024.pem to ssl_dh=</opt/psa/etc/dhparams2048.pem - then delete the old /opt/psa/etc/dhparams1024.pem for tidiness.

One further minor issue (again on the same older server): rndc decided it didn't want to talk to bind anymore. Resolution - as described here: https://serverfault.com/questions/221250/fixing-bind9-rndc-error-connection-to-remote-host-closed

Oh, also: you might need to run mkdir /var/lib/php/sessions in order to avoid errors from one or two cron jobs.

So, in short... you can do it, guys. But you'll need to be on the ball fixing stuff afterwards. Once you ease into it, though, the fixes are routine across the board and pretty workable.

@anonym
I agree! Plesk needs to get going. This also applies to making MySQL 8 available which still hasn't happened. I am deeply disappointed about this!

@Thomas
Thnx for sharing your findings.

@Plesk
You are not seriously expecting us to do this update manually??? Or booking a genius for 100s of dollars to do it for us? Jeez, this is getting really ridiculous now 😡

We had to call in our hosting vendor's resident genius to complete the "supported" upgrade from 14.04 to 16.04 after multiple attempts following the provided instructions. I hope that future supported upgrades are better documented. Hopefully any other laggards like myself benefit from this post.

Hello Thomas,

After several attempts using various approaches, I was able to upgrade from 14.04 to 16.04.

I found the process was not very well documented and there were inconsistencies between documentation sources and what the scripts themselves provided as instruction.

What seems to have worked is:

1) Start with the original /etc/apt/sources.list which ships with Ubuntu 14 (trusty)
2) Run: /opt/psa/admin/bin/distupgrade.helper.ubt14-ubt16_pre.sh
3) Upgrade Ubuntu using by running: do-release-upgrade
4) Change network interface name in /etc/network/interfaces from eth0 to ens160
5) Reboot
6) Re-enable entries in /etc/apt/50sw_autoinstaller.list (do-release-upgrade disables these)
7) Run: apt-get update && apt-get upgrade

This took significant trail and error and I needed to revert the snap shot several times, but as it stands now, the system is running Ubuntu 16.04, Plesk was upgraded to the Ubuntu 16.04 packages and I am able to log into Plesk.

***

My own investigations found that the "ssl" and the "dir" modules of Apache were disabled in the upgrade process and needed to be re-enabled. Also, PHP was being served by CGI instead of FPM via Apache as was the case prior to the upgrade.

or any feedback...

Any ETA yet? About time...

This subject is discussed further on here: https://talk.plesk.com/threads/plesk-installation-on-ubuntu-20-04.356306/ amongst other forum posts...

The lack of support for this Ubuntu dist-upgrade is extremely frustrating and very disappointing mainly, because this procedure is an industry standard elsewhere. Being forced to transfer all of your server's setup onto a new server....then do a fresh install of Plesk....then use the not much loved Plesk migrator is far from atractive or forward thinking. It's like a hopping into time machine & then going back to those awful Windoze Vista days :o(((

Everybody running Ubuntu 18.04.5 LTS for example, has the ability to officially upgrade to Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS as of yesterday 6/8/20, so the lag / delay from Plesk wouldn't be too unaccpetable if Plesk were able to instigate this from say Obsidian 18.0.31 onwards? That's more than sufficient time to have tested it and released this Ubuntu dist-upgrade suport as an inclusive Plesk item.

I swear Plesk developer have half a brain cell to share between them, such a rip-off to discontinue dist-upgrade

I don't want to use the migrator either. I would prefer a simple in-place upgrade.

@jabith How is that good news? The point of this thread is to enable in-place upgrading of the OS version and NOT have to user the migrator which isn't feasible for the vast majority of users.

Good news: Plesk Obsidian 18.0.29 hast just been launched, with this feature:
Ubuntu 20 is now supported. Plesk Migrator supports migration from Ubuntu 16 and 18 to Ubuntu 20.

@Anonymous: it is correct, that 16.04 is not "fully" EOLed, BUT not all packages are supported until April 2021! Many are not and already unsupported.

# ubuntu-support-status
Support status summary of 'plesk-server':

You have 3 packages (0.3%) supported until April 2021 (Community - 5y)
You have 713 packages (62.2%) supported until April 2021 (Canonical - 5y)

You have 155 packages (13.5%) that can not/no-longer be downloaded
You have 276 packages (24.1%) that are unsupported

This is bad news and something every admin should be worried about.

IMO it is over due to do upgrades for 16.04. Is Plesk really expecting that customers upgrade at the last minute?
Plus: why oh why doesn't plesk set a deadline and communicate it???

@anonym I understand that you are upset. I am too. But spreading misinformation won't help. 16.04 still has security support until April 2021

16.04 is EOLed since 3 month and therefore insecure. Not having a working update path is just unbelievable. I have contacted my lawyer today to check what my legal rights in this matter are.
And shame on you PLESK for not giving us more informations. I am so disappointed...

dear plesk-team,
would you please give us feedback on the planning status?
please don't leave us hanging like this and we can think about alternatives in time.
many thanks in advance.

Me too cannot believe, that we dont have any other solution then to use the migration "tool" from Plesk

Me too cannot believe, that we dont have any other solution then to use the migration "tool" from Plesk. I am really dissapointed by now...

Hello? Any update yet? Please implement 16.04 to 18.04 and/or 20.04 NOW