Upgrading redhat/centos

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Hey guys,

I just signed up to the forum. I have been using linux since 7.3 of redhat. But never seriously and never really got GOOD at it. Just used it here and there occasionally.

I've decided to finally try to become an expert after all these years. Ok, I think expert is too strong of a word, maybe not be so amatuerish...

So I will do my best to go back and read a bunch of threads here, I'm sure there are GREAT questions that can help me out. So I will do my due diligence.

I do have one quick question though.

I am currently using CentOS 5.2.

I see that CentOS 5.3 is now out. How does one upgrade to 5.3? Do you simply install the CD's over your current OS hoping you don't write over anything? Or do you somehow use YUM and it upgrades all the packages that is in 5.3?

One other quick question, is the kernel always a newer version in each release?

Thanks!

[charlie205]

The CDs give you the option to upgrade your current installation. They've done a pretty good job of making sure they don't trounce all over your configs, though extremely custom stuff can not be accounted for (obviously), so you'll want to backup anything important to you.

Just pop in the new discs, select upgrade, it will find your current installation and upgrade it.

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The CDs give you the option to upgrade your current installation. They've done a pretty good job of making sure they don't trounce all over your configs, though extremely custom stuff can not be accounted for (obviously), so you'll want to backup anything important to you.

Just pop in the new discs, select upgrade, it will find your current installation and upgrade it.

Thanks for the quick reply. This makes sense. I guess it works just like when installing Windows over itself.

My concern has always been writing over your custom stuff. Like say you installed mysql. I would hope that upgrading to 5.3 would not overwrite your "my.cnf" file in the default directory "/etc/my.cnf".

[charlie205]

It shouldn't overwrite these kinds of files. For example, when I did this recently I was concerned it might overwrite the config files for pptpd, but it did not.

Of course, it's always a good idea to offload a copy of key files like that just in case. It's "cheap insurance".

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It shouldn't overwrite these kinds of files. For example, when I did this recently I was concerned it might overwrite the config files for pptpd, but it did not.

Of course, it's always a good idea to offload a copy of key files like that just in case. It's "cheap insurance".

Thanks. Yup, it's a good idea to backup what you feel might get overwritten, it's quick and easy and you WONT pay for it down the road if it does get overwritten.

Many thanks..

[daark.child]

I update my CentOS server using yum (its ok to do this for incremental releases). The first step is to install the centos-release rpm for the new version and then run "yum upgrade". e.g.

#rpm -Uvh http://mirror.centos.org/centos-5/5.3/os/i386/CentOS/centos-release-5-3.el5.centos.1.i386.rpm
#yum -y upgrade

[coopstah13]

The point releases of CentOS are just the cumulative changes up until that point packaged into the installation system. As long as you keep your system up to date by running yum updates occasionally, your system will be up to date, and you will notice that it "upgrades" to the newest point release automatically (which is just a text file saying that it is 5.3 pretty much).

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I update my CentOS server using yum (its ok to do this for incremental releases). The first step is to install the centos-release rpm for the new version and then run "yum upgrade". e.g.

The point releases of CentOS are just the cumulative changes up until that point packaged into the installation system. As long as you keep your system up to date by running yum updates occasionally, your system will be up to date, and you will notice that it "upgrades" to the newest point release automatically (which is just a text file saying that it is 5.3 pretty much).

Fantastic! I wrote down your instructions daark.child. But what about the kernel?
Is the only way to get the latest kernel is to upgrade with the CD/ISO and then reboot your server?

Or is that nothing special and just some regular file that can also be patched?
But I assume the OS must be restarted for the new kernel to be used right?

So I guess my question to you guys is, I think of the kernel as the core/heart of the OS. At which point does that actually get a new version?

Thanks guys!

[coopstah13]

The kernel is the OS. RHEL/CentOS don't upgrade their kernel version once they release, it only gets security patches.

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The kernel is the OS. RHEL/CentOS don't upgrade their kernel version once they release, it only gets security patches.

Well I feel like a dummy.

When I issue the command: uname -ir

Is this the kernel that I am getting?

2.6.18-128.4.1.e15