[Fedora-xen] server migration

[Eric Brunson]

Russell McOrmond wrote:
>
>   I would like to ask a question that I was hoping would get answered 
> in this thread.  With physical hardware machines you can boot from an 
> Install CD and do an upgrade.   I doubt a F7 will be able to handle a 
> FC1 or lower, but I have upgraded very old machines doing steps (RH8 
> to FC1 to FC3 to FC5 in the past).
>
>   I don't have hardware virtualization, so booting an install CD 
> within a XenU isn't possible.  I am wondering if there is a way to 
> launch an upgrade process similar to what is on the CD, but within a 
> paravirtualized XenU.
>
>   Just forcing an upgrade of the fedora-release, and then doing a 'yum 
> update' doesn't work well given the packages are being upgraded in the 
> same context that yum is running.  This is one of those things with 
> I've seen Debian based systems handle better, and is one of the areas 
> I'd love to see improvements in Fedora.

Always after a couple of tests on my machines at home, I've two dozen 
remote upgrades on production servers using yum.  RH9->FC1 was a 
complete disaster, but every iteration of FC has been better.  I have 
one server that has gone from FC2->3->4->5->6 all via yum upgrades and 
all remotely (I hate that datacenter).  This last go around I took 4 
other machines from FC4->5->6 with no problems whatsoever.  The one 
additional step I always take is:  1) force the upgrade of fedora 
release, 2) *upgrade yum*, then 3) yum upgrade the rest of the system.

> Side-note: My ISP recommends against doing upgrades with RHEL  -- I 
> have customers with RHEL3 and RHEL4 that I want to upgrade to RHEL5, 
> and I'm told that the only reliable way to do that is to wipe and 
> re-install RHEL5 and then reconfigure all my software.
>

It's in your ISP's best interest to err on the side of caution, but I 
don't have any personal experience with RHEL, so I'll leave it at that.