Re: [CentOS] upgrading from CentOS 7 to 8
On 01/10/19 23:38, Liam O'Toole wrote: On Tue, 01 Oct, 2019 at 13:57:19 -0400, MAILIST wrote: After 40 years of upgrading many different operating systems, Windows (from 3.1 to 10), CentOS 6 to 8, Ubuntu, Fedora, Red Hat, AT Unix, VAX VMS; I have never observed an upgrade from one major version to the next to work. The last one I tried using their "upgrade process" was Ubuntu 18 to 19. Didn't work. I've been running Debian stable on various machines over the course of about 17 years. I have *never* had to reinstall. ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos Hi to all members, I never upgraded from major to major, always preferred a new install by default. In the last months I'm seeing upgrade between major release under another view. CentOS does not support (at least C7) the upgrade to 8 and I think that will remain so for many years. First of all I think that if we can upgrade from major to major, 10 years of support would not be needed but I think also that the mainstream supports releases for 10 years to avoid this type of problem (upgrade between major release). For a distro like CentOS,Fedora,Debian,OpenSUSE (based on community) there would be no problem, without support you are alone and you could do all what you want: You broke your server? It's a your problem. Also if I never upgraded to a new major release (like in fedora, debian, ubuntu) I think that the to perform a successfull upgrade you must avoid to install third party repo, app, custom rpm and so on: you need to stay as much as possible in the repositories and CentOS has a small repository (in fact we need EPEL that is considered third repo). Consider also the great changes between each centos release. In this release we get podman, nftables, appstreams, many packages removed and others changed version and other. Those are big changes. How the system will reacts to this? For example my C7 workstation have kde plasma 4 installed. What would happen if I upgrade to C8 when kde is deprecated on EL8? I could have a no working workstation and this could be a problem. This is a stupid example, take for example the change from docket to podman, or better an external rpm compiled for C7 and try to run on 8. A pita. Now, for a moment, imagine that RH will permit upgrade between major releases. Every supported customers probably would be need support for this process. Considering also that every customer could have his packages etc, how can RH support manage this? It's too risky when you have corps as customers. best regards. ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] upgrading from CentOS 7 to 8
On Tue, 01 Oct, 2019 at 13:57:19 -0400, MAILIST wrote: > After 40 years of upgrading many different operating systems, > Windows (from 3.1 to 10), CentOS 6 to 8, Ubuntu, Fedora, Red Hat, > AT Unix, VAX VMS; I have never observed an upgrade from one major > version to the next to work. The last one I tried using their "upgrade > process" was Ubuntu 18 to 19. Didn't work. I've been running Debian stable on various machines over the course of about 17 years. I have *never* had to reinstall. ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] upgrading from CentOS 7 to 8
Le 01/10/2019 à 19:57, MAILIST a écrit : > After 40 years of upgrading many different operating systems, > Windows (from 3.1 to 10), CentOS 6 to 8, Ubuntu, Fedora, Red Hat, > AT Unix, VAX VMS; I have never observed an upgrade from one major > version to the next to work. The last one I tried using their "upgrade > process" was Ubuntu 18 to 19. Didn't work. OpenSUSE Leap upgrades from one major version to the next work fine, provided you know what you're doing. * https://www.microlinux.fr/opensuse-leap-update-15-1/ In the past, I also performed major upgrades on Slackware servers, which were always perfectly documented by the distributor and worked without drama. Cheers, Niki -- Microlinux - Solutions informatiques durables 7, place de l'église - 30730 Montpezat Site : https://www.microlinux.fr Mail : i...@microlinux.fr Tél. : 04 66 63 10 32 Mob. : 06 51 80 12 12 ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] upgrading from CentOS 7 to 8
> Am 01.10.2019 um 22:19 schrieb Valeri Galtsev : > > I routinely upgrade FreeBSD. Last time it was 11.3 to 12.0. Always smooth. > Maybe I'm just lucky... No, it works very well. But it’s designed with an eventual upgrade in mind. ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] upgrading from CentOS 7 to 8
On 2019-10-01 12:57, MAILIST wrote: Your answer has nothing to do with the original question which is related to upgrade method and not condition for reinstalling without loosing data. After 40 years of upgrading many different operating systems, Windows (from 3.1 to 10), CentOS 6 to 8, Ubuntu, Fedora, Red Hat, AT Unix, VAX VMS; I have never observed an upgrade from one major version to the next to work. The last one I tried using their "upgrade process" was Ubuntu 18 to 19. Didn't work. I routinely upgrade FreeBSD. Last time it was 11.3 to 12.0. Always smooth. Maybe I'm just lucky... Valeri When a new major version of any o/s is released, I have found it best to save what application data I can, delete all partitions on the target boot disk, and then install from scratch. I learned years ago to keep application data out of system directories, ideally on a separate drive that can be mounted on the new installation. Yes, you do loose your settings, but that's why it would be wise to stick with the defaults, if possible. Yes, the database is always in a system directory by default, so that's why you do a dump before the upgrade. My "cheat-sheet" of things to do during an upgrade is about 10 pages long. If you do have to restore from a backup, be sure you do not restore any system directories (like /etc/fstab). I made this mistake, once! System admins must learn to bite the bullet on this part of their job. Todd Merriman ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos -- Valeri Galtsev Sr System Administrator Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics University of Chicago Phone: 773-702-4247 ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] upgrading from CentOS 7 to 8
On Tue, 1 Oct 2019 13:57:19 -0400 "MAILIST" wrote: > > Your answer has nothing to do with the original question which is related > > to upgrade method and not condition for reinstalling without loosing > > data. > > After 40 years of upgrading many different operating systems, > Windows (from 3.1 to 10), CentOS 6 to 8, Ubuntu, Fedora, Red Hat, > AT Unix, VAX VMS; I have never observed an upgrade from one major > version to the next to work. The last one I tried using their "upgrade > process" was Ubuntu 18 to 19. Didn't work. It is not true for the VAX/VMS. My first version was 1.0. And it was working (sometimes) for Fedora. BR, Bob ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] upgrading from CentOS 7 to 8
On Tue, Oct 1, 2019 at 1:32 PM Elliot wrote: > In my career, I've managed many Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, and CentOS > systems, and I found that in-situ upgrading of Debian, Ubuntu, and > Fedora are usually easy and convenient. I'll concur in my experience. I've upgraded a number of Ubuntu servers through major version updates. The longest jump I have is on Fedora Server. One particularly central and critical server was built before I arrived, with Fedora 18. I have personally upgraded that on every release starting from 21 on up to the current 30. It's certainly possible to have major version upgrades be reliable. The big trick is to read release notes for any software you are using and note any issues they mention. ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] upgrading from CentOS 7 to 8
On 10/1/19 10:57 AM, MAILIST wrote: >> Your answer has nothing to do with the original question which is related >> to upgrade method and not condition for reinstalling without loosing >> data. > > After 40 years of upgrading many different operating systems, > Windows (from 3.1 to 10), CentOS 6 to 8, Ubuntu, Fedora, Red Hat, > AT Unix, VAX VMS; I have never observed an upgrade from one major > version to the next to work. The last one I tried using their "upgrade > process" was Ubuntu 18 to 19. Didn't work. Not trying to undermine what you said. I totally believe that different situations deserve different solutions. In my career, I've managed many Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, and CentOS systems, and I found that in-situ upgrading of Debian, Ubuntu, and Fedora are usually easy and convenient. If you are using 3rd party repos/PPAs you sometimes need to disable them and/or remove some packages, but nothing can't be solved by a few apt/yum/dnf commands. Most of my Debian/Ubuntu servers only need to be installed once when we got the hardware, and they are upgraded through several major versions before being retired. Debian has especially well written documentation for each release on how to upgrade from previous versions. I've about three dozen shared and heavily used Fedora workstations that haven't been reinstalled since 2012? And we have upgraded them through each Fedora release using yum/dnf. The only problem I could remember was when we found that our initial allocation for the /boot partition turned out to be too small in recent years, when kernels are becoming monstrous. We simply adjusted the partitions and rsync'ed the whole root directory from backup. Still didn't do reinstall. These upgrades were usually done by volunteer student admins following Fedora's documentation, and few of them complained. Same can be said for our Ubuntu laptops. In most cases, end user just needed to click Upgrade when a new major version was released, and most of them went through without much trouble. Although the new versions were usually buggy in many ways, it usually wasn't the upgrade process to be blamed. However, that can't be said for CentOS/RHEL. You are totally right that CentOS are better reinstalled/imaged rather than upgraded. -- Elliot ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] upgrading from CentOS 7 to 8
On Tue, 1 Oct 2019 at 14:00, MAILIST wrote: > > > Your answer has nothing to do with the original question which is related > > to upgrade method and not condition for reinstalling without loosing > > data. > > After 40 years of upgrading many different operating systems, > Windows (from 3.1 to 10), CentOS 6 to 8, Ubuntu, Fedora, Red Hat, > AT Unix, VAX VMS; I have never observed an upgrade from one major > version to the next to work. The last one I tried using their "upgrade > process" was Ubuntu 18 to 19. Didn't work. > I would mostly agree with the added caveat.. it can be made to work, but you need to do a LOT of work continually to make it happen. Upgrade programs are usually tested for each Unix and Linux in the following manner: For A in Arch; do For B in Hardware-Type; do For X in Oldest_Supported_Major to Youngest_Supported_Major; do For Y from Oldest_Support_Minor to Youngest_Supported_Minor; do Install the OS-X.Y from original media. (maybe) Make changes as listed in manual (if you are lucky) Make known changes which broke major customer last time Run upgrade to OS-N.0 Reboot. If system boots; Pass else Fail; fi Done; Done; Done; Done; Fix all the Fails that you can.. or document that they can't be fixed in tech support. That still probably takes several QA people days of work to go through for an upgrade. Most systems that are lived in quickly fall outside of the scope of what the upgrade tests can find OR what the upgrade program can determine what to do. This is the main reason why you should do a rollout of a new operating system with a plan beyond yum --upgrade-system --YOLO So to make it work, what you normally have to do is continually treat your system like it could be nuked at any moment and you need to rebuild it from whatever is latest. That takes a lot of controls and work which most of us don't have time for. I have seen someone who has incredibly strict rules on their CM upgrade a box from Red Hat Linux 5 to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 to show it can be done..[this was a box with databases, website tools, etc etc.. the CM was larger than the database dump] > When a new major version of any o/s is released, I have found it best > to save what application data I can, delete all partitions on the target > boot disk, and then install from scratch. > > I learned years ago to keep application data out of system directories, > ideally on a separate drive that can be mounted on the new installation. > Yes, you do loose your settings, but that's why it would be wise to stick > with the defaults, if possible. Yes, the database is always in a system > directory by default, so that's why you do a dump before the upgrade. > My "cheat-sheet" of things to do during an upgrade is about 10 pages long. > > If you do have to restore from a backup, be sure you do not restore any > system directories (like /etc/fstab). I made this mistake, once! > > System admins must learn to bite the bullet on this part of their job. > > Todd Merriman > ___ > CentOS mailing list > CentOS@centos.org > https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos -- Stephen J Smoogen. ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] upgrading from CentOS 7 to 8
> Your answer has nothing to do with the original question which is related > to upgrade method and not condition for reinstalling without loosing > data. After 40 years of upgrading many different operating systems, Windows (from 3.1 to 10), CentOS 6 to 8, Ubuntu, Fedora, Red Hat, AT Unix, VAX VMS; I have never observed an upgrade from one major version to the next to work. The last one I tried using their "upgrade process" was Ubuntu 18 to 19. Didn't work. When a new major version of any o/s is released, I have found it best to save what application data I can, delete all partitions on the target boot disk, and then install from scratch. I learned years ago to keep application data out of system directories, ideally on a separate drive that can be mounted on the new installation. Yes, you do loose your settings, but that's why it would be wise to stick with the defaults, if possible. Yes, the database is always in a system directory by default, so that's why you do a dump before the upgrade. My "cheat-sheet" of things to do during an upgrade is about 10 pages long. If you do have to restore from a backup, be sure you do not restore any system directories (like /etc/fstab). I made this mistake, once! System admins must learn to bite the bullet on this part of their job. Todd Merriman ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] upgrading from CentOS 7 to 8
Your answer has nothing to do with the original question which is related to upgrade method and not condition for reinstalling without loosing data. Sometimes you need to keep your configuration and want to avoid reconfiguring everything, and reimaging your computer keeping /home is not an option. Of course having all user files on a separate filesystem helps when reimaging the OS (that what I do as main developer of SystemImager, but in some circumstances, you may want to just upgrade the OS Like you do when you upgrade iOS-12 to iOS-13 or Android-8 to Android-9 without loosing a single bit of configuration. A mature OS should be able to do upgrade itself without artifacts. MacOS and iOS and now Windows-10 are example of OS that are able to self upgrade from version to version. Reimaging a computer to perform an upgrade of its OS is just as silly as rebooting a computer to restart a service (that's what windows-10 still do). That said, the original question is more like: is there a dnf dist-upgrade or similar to what is available on fedora for upgrading centos-7 to centos-8: $ sudo dnf upgrade --refresh# Make sur packages are up to date in current OS release and that there are no dependancies issues. $ sudo dnf install dnf-plugin-system-upgrade# Add the OS upgrade plugin $ sudo dnf system-upgrade download --refresh --releasever=30 # example for fedora-29 to 30 $ sudo dnf system-upgrade reboot As of writing, dnf-plugin-system-upgrade package is not available in centos-7 and thus this method is not available to upgrade centos-7 to centos-8. Olivier. Le 01/10/2019 17:21, « CentOS au nom de mark » a écrit : KM via CentOS wrote: > I searched a bit to see if there is a way to upgrade from CentOS 7 > directly to CentOS 8. I found RHEL instructions but not CentOS.  > Although they probably should be/would be similar, the instructions I > found enable a rhel repository to get the leap command, which I can't > seem to do in CentOS. > > Does anyone know if you can do an upgrade yet. I know they had been > working on it in the past. > > also - when they say upgrade (for example on the rhel pages), is it in > place meaning I can leave my files/data there, or is it strictly a way of > installing the OS that is going to wipe out my files? Your files - data, home directories, etc, SHOULD NOT BE ON THE SAME FILESYSTEM as the o/s: /, /var/, /etc, /usr. If you didn't do that (the way M$ does), then you're ok - the o/s can be replaced, and it won't hurt anything... just make SURE that you unselect the partitions/drives that everything else is on. mark ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] upgrading from CentOS 7 to 8
KM via CentOS wrote: > I searched a bit to see if there is a way to upgrade from CentOS 7 > directly to CentOS 8. I found RHEL instructions but not CentOS.  > Although they probably should be/would be similar, the instructions I > found enable a rhel repository to get the leap command, which I can't > seem to do in CentOS. > > Does anyone know if you can do an upgrade yet. I know they had been > working on it in the past. > > also - when they say upgrade (for example on the rhel pages), is it in > place meaning I can leave my files/data there, or is it strictly a way of > installing the OS that is going to wipe out my files? Your files - data, home directories, etc, SHOULD NOT BE ON THE SAME FILESYSTEM as the o/s: /, /var/, /etc, /usr. If you didn't do that (the way M$ does), then you're ok - the o/s can be replaced, and it won't hurt anything... just make SURE that you unselect the partitions/drives that everything else is on. mark ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
[CentOS] upgrading from CentOS 7 to 8
I searched a bit to see if there is a way to upgrade from CentOS 7 directly to CentOS 8. I found RHEL instructions but not CentOS. Although they probably should be/would be similar, the instructions I found enable a rhel repository to get the leap command, which I can't seem to do in CentOS. Does anyone know if you can do an upgrade yet. I know they had been working on it in the past. also - when they say upgrade (for example on the rhel pages), is it in place meaning I can leave my files/data there, or is it strictly a way of installing the OS that is going to wipe out my files? Thanks in advance. KM ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
