Remote upgrade of a RedHat 9 server into Fedora Core X

Where X = 8 and arch = i386.

I am not really a fan of RedHat like distros, but I had once this pretty old server running RedHat 9, which was unable to have any more updates when Fedora Legacy decided to stop it after a while of great job.

So this is my quick HOWTO based on notes from this website : http://www.brandonhutchinson.com/Upgrading_Red_Hat_Linux_with_yum.html with a few add-ons.

• Download and install the Fedora version of yum:

rpm -Uvh http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/1/i386/os/Fedora/RPMS/yum-2.0.4-2.noarch.rpm

• Download and install the fedora-release package.

rpm -Uvh http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/1/i386/os/Fedora/RPMS/fedora-release-1-3.i386.rpm

• Modify /etc/yum.conf

[main]
cachedir=/var/cache/yum
debuglevel=2
logfile=/var/log/yum.log
pkgpolicy=newest
distroverpkg=fedora-release
tolerant=1
exactarch=1

[base]
name=Fedora Core $releasever - $basearch - Base
baseurl=http://redhat.download.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora/linux/core/$releasever/i386/os

• Upgrade to Fedora Core 1.

yum -y upgrade

• Check /etc/lilo.conf to have 2.4.22-1.2115.nptl by default.

• reboot

• Check all your kernels and remove unused ones

rpm -q kernel kernel-smp
rpm -e ...

• Clean up a little caches

yum clean all

• Download and install the new Fedora version and yum version :

rpm -Uvh http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/2/i386/os/Fedora/RPMS/yum-2.0.7-1.1.noarch.rpm http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/2/i386/os/Fedora/RPMS/fedora-release-2-4.i386.rpm

• Remove apt if it is still here

rpm -e apt

• Partial pre-upgrade

yum upgrade yum python rpm-python rpm glibc glibc-common redhat-config-\* XFree86\* libxml2\*

• Upgrade all

yum -y upgrade

• Check grub or lilo to have the FC2 kernel by default

• Reboot

• remove up2date

rpm -e up2date

• Retrieve the Fedora Project gpg key

wget http://fedora.redhat.com/about/security/4F2A6FD2.txt
rpm --import 4F2A6FD2.txt

• Retrieve yum and fedora-release, and install them

wget http://fedora.glorb.com/core/3/i386/os/Fedora/RPMS/fedora-release-3-8.i386.rpm
wget http://fedora.glorb.com/core/3/i386/os/Fedora/RPMS/yum-2.1.11-3.noarch.rpm
rpm -Uvh fedora-release-3-8.i386.rpm yum-2.1.11-3.noarch.rpm 
rpm -Uvh --force fedora-release-3-8.i386.rpm yum-2.1.11-3.noarch.rpm

• Remove older kernels (2.4.x from RH9, FC1…)

rpm -q kernel kernel-smp

rpm -e kernel-2.4...

• Upgrade all packages

yum -y upgrade

• Check grub or lilo to have the FC3 kernel by default

• Reboot

• Download and install the new Fedora version :

rpm -Uvh http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/4/i386/os/Fedora/RPMS/fedora-release-4-2.noarch.rpm

• Upgrade mkinitrd first :

yum -y upgrade mkinitrd

• Then upgrade kernel :

yum -y update kernel

• disable Selinux in /etc/sysconfig/selinux

SELINUX=disabled

• Check grub or lilo to have the FC4 kernel by default

• Reboot

• Remove older kernels (from FC3, FC2 or prior)

rpm -q kernel kernel-smp

rpm -e kernel...

• Upgrade all

yum -y upgrade

• Download and install the new Fedora version :

rpm -Uvh http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/5/i386/os/Fedora/RPMS/fedora-release-5-5.noarch.rpm

• yum -y update

• Download and install the new Fedora version :

rpm -Uhv http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/6/i386/os/Fedora/RPMS/fedora-release-6-4.noarch.rpm http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/6/i386/os/Fedora/RPMS/fedora-release-notes-6-3.noarch.rpm

• upgrade all

yum -y update

• Check grub or lilo to have the FC6 kernel by default

• Reboot

• Download and install the new Fedora version & release notes :

rpm -Uvh http://mirrors.ircam.fr/pub/fedora/linux/releases/7/Fedora/i386/os/Fedora/fedora-release-notes-7.0.0-1.noarch.rpm
rpm -Uvh http://mirrors.ircam.fr/pub/fedora/linux/releases/7/Fedora/i386/os/Fedora/fedora-release-7-3.noarch.rpm

• upgrade all

yum -y update

• Check grub or lilo to have the FC7 kernel by default
• double check disk names (sda vs hda) et do a grub-install –recheck if necessary

• Reboot

• Download and install the new Fedora version :

rpm -Uvh http://mirrors.ircam.fr/pub/fedora/linux/releases/8/Fedora/i386/os/Packages/fedora-release-8-3.noarch.rpm

• upgrade all

yum -y update

• Check grub or lilo to have the FC8 kernel by default

• Reboot