Upgrade guidance

[Bill McGonigle]

On Oct 20, 2008, at 09:15, Jefferson Kirkland wrote:

> I have done some research already and see that htere is a yumupgrade
> option.

I usually use yum upgrade between consecutive major versions but have  
never been successful leapfrogging major versions with it.  In theory  
you can though.

In sufficiently complex scenarios I've bit the bullet and yum  
upgraded multiple times in succession, but only when that's easier  
than a reinstall preserving /home and /usr/local.  The major reason  
to do it this way is the lack of downtime.  Fedora 9 does need a  
reboot eventually to get Upstart fully going, and one of them (fc6,  
fc7?) switched block devices from /dev/hd* to /dev/sd*, so watch out  
for that.   Google 'yumupgradefaq' for the page with all the tips and  
tricks.

If you're going to do multiple machine upgrades this way, you're best  
off creating local repository mirrors.  'cobbler reposync' makes this  
fairly painless.  Three machines seems to be about the data transfer  
tipping point, and even with fewer if you trickle in updates an  
argument can be made for the less-bursty nature of that.

-Bill

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