Recently I noticed that the Proxmox VE 7 management page started showing red text about support expiration (officially ending July 2024). So I upgraded to version 8. Before starting I carefully read the official upgrade guide: https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Upgrade_from_7_to_8. It describes two methods:
One is a fresh install of 8, then migrating disks and VMs via backup/restore. The other is an in‑place upgrade using apt update/upgrade. The first is safer but requires two servers or identical disk setups. The second carries more risk, since any problem interrupts VM services and may require reinstall and restore. For me, only the in‑place upgrade was possible due to limited hardware.
Despite preparation, the upgrade process was bumpy. The biggest issue was the networking.service/start hang. After the upgrade completed, rebooting the system resulted in a freeze at this state:
At first I waited, but the disk activity light stayed off, so I realized something was wrong. Searching online showed many people with similar problems. This post explained the underlying issue: “Job networking.service/start running”
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