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Red Hat Linux 7.3 to Red Hat Linux 8 Upgrade steps using 'yum'

1. Start with a Red Hat Linux 7.3 installation; let's take a couple snapshots of what the system looked like 'before' in terms of installed packages:
   cd /root/ # rpm -qa | sort > /root/initial-package_with_versions.txt # rpm -qa --qf '%{name} \n' | sort \ > /root/initial-package.txt #
   
2. IMPORTANT: Please, please make full backups of content on that system before starting. Good candidates to rsync to another host are:
   • /etc/
   • /root/
   • /home/
   • /usr/local/bin/
   • those parts of /var/ with unique data
   
   
3. Let's say that again: You must take current backups. The most common cause of problems is running out of space, mid-upgade; if you have backups, it is usually just inconvenient. Without them, things can turn into a disaster. Please.
   
   
4. Install the latest yum version from the home yum site ( http://linux.duke.edu/projects/yum/download.ptml ).
   
   
5. Set up a place for the RHL 8 ISO contents to live for the upgrade; we are going to use the 'file' yum method for reliability and speed:
   mkdir /home/ISO/
6. Successively mount the RHL 8 ISOs and cp /mnt/cdrom/Redhat/RPMS/* /home/ISO/
7. Build the yum archive cd /home/ISO/ ; yum-arch .
8. Edit /etc/yum.conf thus:
   
   

   [main] cachedir=/var/cache/yum debuglevel=2 logfile=/var/log/yum.log pkgpolicy=newest # assume-yes exclude=-kernel [base] name=Red Hat Linux 8.0 base baseurl=http://mirror.dulug.duke.edu/pub/yum-repository/redhat/8.0/i386/ [updates] name=Red Hat Linux 8.0 updates baseurl=http://mirror.dulug.duke.edu/pub/yum-repository/redhat/updates/8.0/ [upgrade] name=Localhost baseurl=file://localhost/home/ISO/

   
   
9. Do a test upgrade (note that will not proceede to completion, as we do not add the yum '-y' option.) yum upgrade
10. If one get some problems about missing dependencies, we need to remove the parent packages out of the existing RHL 7.3 installaton for the moment; as a general rule, if one runs into dependency problems later on, pull the offending package out temporarily, and add it back once the upgrade is done. In our example, below, we assime that there is some problem involving 'ImageMagick':
    rpm -e `rpm -qa --qf '%{name}\n' | grep Image`
    
11. Do the hard part of the upgrade 'for real': yum -t -y upgrade rpm python kernel
12. At this point, we have changed rpm and python versions, and will need to get a RHL 8 conpatible yum, and helper rpm404 pieces -- see the yum site as referenced above, and manually get this updated. thee files to watch for are: rpm404-python, librpm404-devel and librpm404
    
    Once that is done, let's rebuild the rpm database, to get rid of possible issues: rpm -vv --rebuilddb
13. Do the upgrade 'for real': yum -t -y upgrade
14. Confirm that you have a RHL 8 kernel rpm -qa | grep kernel
15. We may need to manually edit the /boot/grub/grub.conf file to point to the RHL 8 kernel.
    
    
16. At this point, we need to manually remove the old yum, and its dependencies; we will rebuild the rpm database as well, now: [root@ftp RPMS]# rpm -e yum warning: /etc/yum.conf saved as /etc/yum.conf.rpmsave [root@ftp RPMS]# rpm -vv --rebuilddb ... snip ... [root@ftp RPMS]#
17. Now we reboot, as the proper glibc, and kernel need to be picked up before we update to the latest packages. We will rebuild the rpm database again, with that kernel and glibc. [root@ftp RPMS]# rpm -vv --rebuilddb [root@ftp RPMS]#
18. You may also also wish to manually clean away the transition content at: /home/ISO/ and /var/cache/yum/upgrades/

We welcome reports and suggestions to: info+yum-738@owlriver.com


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Last modified: Sat, 19 Jun 2004 00:51:57 -0400
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