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I performed a do-release-upgrade through SSH to upgrade a server from 8.04 to 10.04.
I have followed the on-screen infos through the upgrade and everything seemed to go well. However, after the upgrade and the final reboot, the server never started again. Or at least was unreachable (Apache, SSH, mail... Nothing!).
Fortunately the hosting company provides a recovery system which allows me to reach the server with a live Linux, to mount the partitions and access them.
So my question is: now that I'm in recovery mode, where should I look to find out where the problem comes from? I'm looking in the system logs but don't find anything.
I need to have this server up and running again by 8 tomorrow morning (2am now), so your help would be very much appreciated...

EDIT

I found this in the logs:

Mar 31 22:43:14 wpc2617 exiting on signal 15
Mar 31 22:55:37 wpc2617 rsyslogd: [origin software="rsyslogd" swVersion="4.2.0" x-pid="14695"    x-info="http://www.rsyslog.com"] (re)start
Mar 31 22:55:37 wpc2617 rsyslogd: rsyslogd's groupid changed to 103
Mar 31 22:55:37 wpc2617 rsyslogd: rsyslogd's userid changed to 102

And I wonder if a userid change couldn't explain the whole issue. Is it possible that a/ it happens during an upgrade b/ it has such consequences?

Thanks!

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There's really no replacement for getting a look at the console when this is going on, but failing that.. anything useful in the logs? – Shane Madden Apr 1 '11 at 0:48
Nothing seems to have been written in the logs since the upgrade... I'm looking in /var/log. Is there somewhere else I should check? Is there a config file where I can set debugging in a log file when the system starts? – Nabab Apr 1 '11 at 0:52
How long did you leave it alone before they put it into the recovery environment? Nothing in the logs means the disk probably didn't mount - could have been as simple as a scheduled filesystem check that was running before boot? – Shane Madden Apr 1 '11 at 1:13
I waited 35 to 45 mn, not sure. I put it myself in the recovery mode from an admin panel on the hosting company's website, and I can switch between reovery and normal mode. You mean the filesystem check would make the boot very long before mounting anything? – Nabab Apr 1 '11 at 1:25
@Nabab Potentially, but it would only take longer than that for a very large filesystem (multiple terabytes) - how big are your disks? – Shane Madden Apr 1 '11 at 2:16
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