Centos 5 Upgrade - We Know We Need to Go to 7
Posted: 2019/01/10 20:17:50
I have an environment I'm just walking into. Not my fault for why it is what it is. I just want to make the safest possible choice.
We have Centos 5.8. We have had a hard disk failure in what I believe is a RAID 1 configuration. The environment has not been backed up in an eternity, so there's nothing to fall back on. As a result, we're looking to install a backup agent for Acronis. The installation procedure requires kernel, kernel headers, and kernel sources (without explicitly calling for any particular package), as well as gcc, make, etc.
Looking at the packages available and installed, I find that these are installed:
kernel.x86_64 2.6.18-308.13.1.el5
kernel-headers.x86_64 2.6.18-308.13.1.el5
Available are:
kernel 2.6.18-419.el5 updates
kernel-headers.x86_64 2.6.18-419.el5 updates
kernel-devel.x86_64 2.6.18-419.el5 updates
I have been assuming that to have "kernel sources" I need to have kernel-devel.
The documentation for Acronis clearly says that all kernel packages should be at the same level. As such, I'm assuming I need to apply 2.6.18-419 for all three packages.
In most cases, when applying anything to the kernel, I like to reboot. But since we have an at-risk disk environment, with a disk already having failed, it may not be an option.
So, the procedure I'm currently considering, to minimize failure potential, is as follows:
1) Attach a USB external drive to the server.
2) Copy both file systems to the USB-attached drive.
3) Upgrade the kernel packages.
4) Install Acronis agent.
5) Back up the server using Acronis.
6) Replace failed hard drive with new one.
7) Initiate rebuild of hard drive from functional drive still in place.
I do not consider an upgrade to CentOS 6 or 7 to be feasible until after this process is done. We anticipate the update to a new major version of CentOS will take weeks, and we can't afford that at this time. And when we do that upgrade, it is likely to be to the cloud.
The question I have is, "Is this a reasonable process to follow that is most likely to lead to success?"
Do you have any suggestions on how to improve this process?
What utilities would you use for the backup to the USB drive? There are two LVs involved. One is the "/" file system, and is fairly small - under 15G. The other is the data volume and is about 275GB.
Thanks in advance.
SnidleyStash
We have Centos 5.8. We have had a hard disk failure in what I believe is a RAID 1 configuration. The environment has not been backed up in an eternity, so there's nothing to fall back on. As a result, we're looking to install a backup agent for Acronis. The installation procedure requires kernel, kernel headers, and kernel sources (without explicitly calling for any particular package), as well as gcc, make, etc.
Looking at the packages available and installed, I find that these are installed:
kernel.x86_64 2.6.18-308.13.1.el5
kernel-headers.x86_64 2.6.18-308.13.1.el5
Available are:
kernel 2.6.18-419.el5 updates
kernel-headers.x86_64 2.6.18-419.el5 updates
kernel-devel.x86_64 2.6.18-419.el5 updates
I have been assuming that to have "kernel sources" I need to have kernel-devel.
The documentation for Acronis clearly says that all kernel packages should be at the same level. As such, I'm assuming I need to apply 2.6.18-419 for all three packages.
In most cases, when applying anything to the kernel, I like to reboot. But since we have an at-risk disk environment, with a disk already having failed, it may not be an option.
So, the procedure I'm currently considering, to minimize failure potential, is as follows:
1) Attach a USB external drive to the server.
2) Copy both file systems to the USB-attached drive.
3) Upgrade the kernel packages.
4) Install Acronis agent.
5) Back up the server using Acronis.
6) Replace failed hard drive with new one.
7) Initiate rebuild of hard drive from functional drive still in place.
I do not consider an upgrade to CentOS 6 or 7 to be feasible until after this process is done. We anticipate the update to a new major version of CentOS will take weeks, and we can't afford that at this time. And when we do that upgrade, it is likely to be to the cloud.
The question I have is, "Is this a reasonable process to follow that is most likely to lead to success?"
Do you have any suggestions on how to improve this process?
What utilities would you use for the backup to the USB drive? There are two LVs involved. One is the "/" file system, and is fairly small - under 15G. The other is the data volume and is about 275GB.
Thanks in advance.
SnidleyStash