The Old and the New

The Old and the New

[dhog]

Here at Basser we have a mixture of machines running the old
and new versions of Plan 9.  We would like to get rid of the old
version.  However, one of these machines is a fileserver, with
attached jukebox, containing valuable files.  Is it safe to just install
a new file server kernel on it?  I am guessing that the disk filesystem
format hasn't changed; is this a safe assumption to make?

Note for those not in the know: the 9P protocol has changed in the
second edition, due to changes in the way that Plan 9 does its
authentication.  Writing a "protocol convertor" looks infeasible,
unless you only want to log in as user "none".  Not all files on the old
system are publically readable, and neither should they be.  Currently
we have one CPU server still on the old system, allowing us to use ftpfs
to access the old files.  But this is quite clumsy, hence my desire
to just run the new system with the old files.

So...  Can it be done?