Re: Upgrading from RHEL v3 to V5

OK, since there has been so little response, I'll throw my two bits in.

On Mon, 2007-03-26 at 05:51 -0500, Jesse Fitzgerald wrote:
> I want to upgrade to version 5.0. I?m a bit anxious though. I only have
> a few users, but have spent a lot of time getting everything running
> well. My question: If I install Red Hat Enterprise V5 using the upgrade
> option via the anaconda installer, will I loose any of my data or
> applications? I know that doing a clean wipe and reinstall is the BEST
> solution, but if possible I would like to upgrade.

Wow, this question has a lot of variables.  Will you loose any of your
data?  Probably not, data should be kept in places where anaconda will
not touch.

> Here is what I?m specifically concerned about loosing:
> Apache, MySql, PHP, Qmail, Vpopmail, and various other small
> applications (Webalizer, etc?). All of the above have been compiled from
> source. I?m also concerned about stuff in /usr /usr/home /etc and /var

I would say that, due to the significant changes in the underlying
libraries, the chance of at least one of these things breaking is high.
However, since you compiled and installed everything from source, you
should be able to simply recompile the broken items from source and
reinstall, saving all of your configs.  I'm assuming you have to do this
to occasionally when security issues affect the various packages you
have installed manually anyway.   The same procedure should work fine
after the upgrade if anything breaks

When you say you are concerned with items in /usr /usr/home /etc
and /var, what exactly concerns you?  What is /usr/home anyway, did you
perhaps mean simply /home?  An upgrade shouldn't really touch /home and
typically won't change much in /var or /etc except for packages
installed from via RPM.  Still, it's an excellent idea to have an
upgrade.

The upgrade might also be a good opportunity to consider moving some of
your installed applications back to Redhat supported packages.  I assume
you manually compiled and installed these packages due to needing newer
versions or additional features that weren't included in RHEL3.  RHEL5
includes fairly modern packages for Apache, MySQL, PHP, Webalizer and
using RHN provided packages would likely ease maintenance for security
related issues and smooth future upgrades.

> The Red Hat manual section on upgrading speaks to the preservation of
> RPMs and packages and fails to address the above mentioned in any detail.
> 
> Thanks in advance for any info you may have. --Jesse :)

Well, it's difficult for Redhat to address what you do on you own.
Basically, my suggestion would be to make a very good backup of the
system, one you could easily revert back to if you need to, and then be
prepared to fix anything that breaks during the upgrade.  If somehow
files get overwritten or lost during the upgrade you can simply pull
them from your backup.

I've done many totally crazy updates (for example, Redhat 6.2 to RHEL4)
with very good success using this method.  In the Redhat 6.2 case it was
also using a custom Apache, PHP, MySQL combo and I simply recompiled and
reinstalled everything using the same ./configure options immediately
after the upgrade.  This got everything working on the RHEL4 system
fairly quickly, then, over the next few weeks I migrated to RHEL
supported packages and never looked back.

Later,
Tom


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