Upgrading to RHEL 4

[Rick Stevens]

On Mon, 2005-11-21 at 13:03 -0500, Smith, Albert wrote:
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: redhat-install-list-bounces at redhat.com 
> > [mailto:redhat-install-list-bounces at redhat.com] On Behalf Of 
> > Rick Stevens
> > Sent: Monday, November 21, 2005 12:50 PM
> > To: Getting started with Red Hat Linux
> > Subject: RE: Upgrading to RHEL 4
> > 
> > On Mon, 2005-11-21 at 12:41 -0500, Smith, Albert wrote:
> > >  
> > > 
> > > > -----Original Message-----
> > > > From: redhat-install-list-bounces at redhat.com
> > > > [mailto:redhat-install-list-bounces at redhat.com] On Behalf Of Rick 
> > > > Stevens
> > > > Sent: Monday, November 21, 2005 12:35 PM
> > > > To: Getting started with Red Hat Linux
> > > > Subject: Re: Upgrading to RHEL 4
> > > > 
> > > > On Sun, 2005-11-20 at 03:07 +0000, jlopes151 at comcast.net wrote:
> > > > > Ok so I have downloaded the *.iso files now what? I don't
> > > > yet know enough about Linx to use these files. Can anyone help?
> > > > 
> > > > You can burn the files to CDs and install from there.  That's 
> > > > probably the easiest way.
> > > > 
> > > > Are you currently running Linux?  If so, what version?  
> > Can you post 
> > > > the output of the "dmesg" command?
> > > > 
> > > I actually had a problem upgrading from RHEL3 to 4 with LVM.
> > > 
> > > RedHat states to do a fresh install.
> > 
> > I can see that.  LVM did change a bit between the 2.4 and 2.6 kernels.
> > 
> Well I found major problems between 3 and 4 that even prevents the
> upgrade to occur. Anaconda has a problem upgrading a multipartioned
> server. Whether it be LVM or not. It only mounts / . If your /boot is on
> another FS as well as /usr /var it can't find half of the things it
> needs to do the upgrade and eventually you will run out of space and
> have a blown upgrade.

Now that's new.  It should mount / and any other filesystems, since
they're all rooted at /.  It's supposed to search /etc/fstab.  I sure
hope this has been squawked to bugzilla.

> So the recommended solution is to do an Administrator Guided Install
> which is a fresh install, patch the system then reinstall your apps. For
> an Oracle system that's a real pain in the rump but not difficult as
> long as your oracle binaries are in a sperate FS then /usr.
> 
> This was the same for 2.1 to 3 and 2.1 to 4. IMHO if you are going from
> 2.1 to 4 I wouldn't upgrade I would do a fresh install anyway.

Hmmm.  Each of those describe a kernel migration, I think.  2.1 was a
2.2 kernel (not sure on that one), 3 is a 2.4 kernel (I'm sure on that)
and 4 is a 2.6 kernel (again, I'm sure of that).

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- Rick Stevens, Senior Systems Engineer     rstevens at vitalstream.com -
- VitalStream, Inc.                       http://www.vitalstream.com -
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-        Polygon: A dead parrot (With apologies to John Cleese)      -
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