The Linode that I have hosted all my sites on since 2011 was finally just too old to update. It has been running LTS versions of Ubuntu that have been upgraded in place since it was originally created. I finally decided to start over when updating a number of tools became much too painful and time consuming.
This blog runs on Ghost and it in particular was painful to update because I had originally installed it before the ghost command line interface existed. All the little things I had done to make the blog fit my environment did not match well with recommendations or defaults, so I would have to fight my way through every update.
To start the transition, I created a new Ubuntu 18.04 Linode and began moving the sites over one at a time. For most sites, I added Lets Encrypt certificates and HTTP to HTTPS redirects. I also switched from Apache httpd to Nginx because it's the default for Ghost.
I saved the email I received when the old Linode was shutdown:
Linode Events Notification - dyoung
Linode Alerts <noreply@linode.com> Mar 24, 2020, 9:00 PM
to me
Hello dyoung! The following activity has recently occurred:
* linode122874 - (193523231) System Shutdown - Completed Wed, 25 Mar 2020 00:53:48 GMT
* linode122874 - (193523232) Inactivate Linode - Completed Wed, 25 Mar 2020 00:54:29 GMT
You were great linode122874, thanks for the years.