Ubuntu 20.04 and PHP 7.4 Notice
If you still host websites that are incompatible with PHP 8+ and are unable to update them, PHP 7.4 is still available on our Ubuntu 20.04 stack (Ubuntu 22.04 and 24.04 only supports PHP 8.0 and above) and there is no immediate need to update them. However, please keep in mind that the official end of life for Ubuntu 20.04 is May 31st 2025, so you should aim to migrate all other sites to 24.04 in the near future.
GridPane Support for Ubuntu 18.04 Servers Ended May 1st 2024
GridPane stopped support for servers with Ubuntu 18.04 on May 1st, 2024. Our support team is no longer able to handle support tickets generated from these servers, or sites on these servers. Please be sure to move your sites to a 22.04, or 24.04 server as soon as possible.
Introduction
For those of you beginning to migrate from Ubuntu 20.04 servers, our cloning scripts are fully compatible with both the 22.04 and 24.04 stacks. However, as with any migration, please ensure you thoroughly test that all your sites have migrated successfully before deleting your original servers.
Information
Our Ubuntu 22.04 and 24.04 stack offer significant upgrades. If you haven't already, we recommend that you read this article:
The Ubuntu 22.04 Stack Feature Updates
How to Upgrade
The easiest way to move your websites is to create a brand new server and then use our full server clone functionality to clone all of your websites in one go. Details on this feature can be found here:
Cloning One Entire Server to Another
Important: Unfortunately, it’s not possible to support upgrading a server’s OS. This is not the straightforward process that it appears to be on the surface, and it can’t simply be automated. Each stack is built specifically to be compatible with each version of the Ubuntu OS and the different software/packages/modules that support it. This means you need a new 24.04 server.
Vultr: Keep Your Existing Server IPs and Avoid DNS Changes
Vultr allows you to convert your existing server IP addresses into “reserved” IP addresses (commonly known as floating IPs). This can potentially save you a great deal of time, and Vultr outlines the process in the following article – but please ensure you follow the guidance immediately below before deleting existing servers:
IMPORTANT: Check Your Websites Before Deleting Your 20.04 Server
Our cloning tool is extremely reliable and will work without issue for almost all websites. However, no matter how reliable, you must always check your websites to confirm that they have been cloned successfully. You can do this via a local host redirect as detailed here before changing DNS / moving your floating IP address:
Additional Resources
If you don’t already have a DNS management strategy in place for your hosting clients, now is an excellent time to implement one.
Q&A
Yes, assuming your servers are all properly sized, and your website databases don’t have any serious issues.
If you’re running a full server-to-server clone, you will also be able to use remote backups from alternative sources for any that don’t play nice for any reason.
Easily Deploy a GridPane WordPress Site
And these articles will help you get started customizing your settings for even quicker deployments:
New WordPress Website Build Configuration Settings
Using Default WordPress Admin Settings to deploy GridPane sites
There are numerous reasons why support for new OS versions takes some time. For example, we were waiting for specific Nginx updates before we released the 20.04 stack, and then ultimately ended up building those ourselves.
Here’s a rundown of the different factors:
- Different packages/modules that we require are not immediately supported by their respective developers, and we need to either wait for their updates to support them or build what we need ourselves.
- Each new stack contains new features, and these take time to build, iterate on, guard against user error, and ensure backward compatibility with earlier stacks.
- Existing features may require adjustments to be compatible with the new OS and/or new features.
- The cloning tools need to be fully compatible with 18.04 and 20.04.
- A massive amount of time-consuming, internal testing before the beta release.
Future stacks will continue to build upon the previous ones, and these may not always have such huge changes like the new system user functionality and directory structures, but we will always be at the mercy of the 3rd party packages we use, which can take 6-9 months or more to come out after the LTS release date.
Unfortunately, you can’t just upgrade your Ubuntu OS. Each stack is built specifically to be compatible with each version of the Ubuntu OS and the different software/packages/modules that support it. Upgrading only the OS will inevitably lead to issues that we cannot provide support for.
This means you need a new 24.04 server, and you will need to migrate your sites across.