[rhelv6-list] switch/"rebrand" RHEL to CentOS (or SF-Linux) or vice-versa?

[Matthias Saou]

Masopust, Christian wrote :

> is it possible?
> 
> which packages to replace?

I regularly modify pre-installed CentOS instances to become RHEL, since
many cheap-ish hosting companies offer CentOS pre-installed but don't
have RHEL available (or charge separately for it and don't let you use
an existing entitlement you have).

I haven't done it with RHEL6 yet. Partly because the available CentOS
are still 5.x and partly because all my quick tests to go from CentOS 5
to RHEL6 have resulted in unbootable remote systems which I can't debug
(hint: it should be possible, the most tricky part is that you need to
upgrade to an intermediate rpm build which understands the newer xz
payloads).

Here are some quick steps for a CentOS5 -> RHEL5 change :

yum clean all
rpm -e --nodeps centos-release centos-release-notes
rm -f /etc/yum.repos.d/CentOS-*
# Remove some packages to get closer to a minimal system, YMMV
yum remove bind bind-chroot caching-nameserver 'man-pages-??' gamin
setools glibc-devel specspo
# Remove 32bit compat stuff for x86_64 systems
yum remove glibc.i686 libgcc.i386 libaio.i386
# Download and install redhat-release* (adapt path, obviously)
cd /tmp
wget redhat-release-5Server-5.6.0.3.x86_64.rpm
wget redhat-release-notes-5Server-36.x86_64.rpm
rpm -Uvh redhat-release-*
rm -rf /var/cache/yum/*
# Once here you need to point the system to your own RHEL yum repo
# or install rhn packages

Of course, you end up with still a bunch of CentOS packages, all those
which had the same version-release as the current RHEL ones. Also, you
get a system for which you should definitely not expect to get any
official Red Hat support!! You do however get a system which can update
from RHN, possibly more consistent with an existing infrastructure.

Matthias

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