Hi @gracedong
Oh wow, that is a very old release!
The usual solution for any upgrading is to upgrade in the order of releases. This handles the database migrations correctly (it is part of the initial start up script). However – other dependency software can present with other problems! (Especially if there are large time gaps, you may run into trouble with hardware/OS changes over time).
So, from where are now, exporting the data and then loading that back into the new instance might be preferred. This is what someone else found as the solution in this topic. → Unable to upgrade Galaxy from 16.07 - #19 by MichaelC
If you want, we can ask the developers for more detailed advice but I’m not sure what parts you will need help with yet. You can post back your follow up questions first, then we can ping into the appropriate places back on the target topic (admin or dev is the usual split).
Let’s start there, thanks! 
XREF