Upgrade CentOS 5.2 to 5.3?

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#1 Wed, 07/08/2009 - 14:37
webwzrd

Upgrade CentOS 5.2 to 5.3?

I guess I haven't been paying attention, but I see CentOS 5.3 has been out for a few months now. Is there anything tricky I should know before I upgrade? Why isn't a minor OS version update automatically brought to my attention like other updates are?

Brian, 3.70 Pro

Wed, 07/08/2009 - 17:42
ronald
ronald's picture

some people had some small issues, I can't recall directly, but they did report in this forum. You should check the usual so you know if the update overwrites config files (php.ini per haps) It is quite a big update

Sat, 02/13/2010 - 00:08 (Reply to #2)
martin.lawrence

Once CentOS 5.3 is released, you can just type "yum upgrade" and you will be upgraded from CentOS 5.2 to CentOS 5.3.

Wed, 07/08/2009 - 18:00
webwzrd

Thanks Ronald,

I ran "yum list updates" and see it's a lengthy list of updates. I found in these forums only a small number of post regarding an upgrade to 5.3 and they all seemed to have extenuating circumstances.

I'll wait a little longer to see if I get any other advise - otherwise I'll hold my breath and if need be, get busy on anything that breaks.

Wed, 07/08/2009 - 18:42
andreychek

It's been awhile since I've upgraded systems to CentOS 5.3, but I seem to recall it going smoothly, for the most part.

It's wise to be up to date though, so my recommendation is to do the updates -- and if you run into trouble, feel free to post any questions into the forums here, and we'll lend a hand :-)

-Eric

Wed, 07/08/2009 - 20:03
webwzrd

Thanks Eric, I definitely feel more confident with you and the rest on my side.

Thu, 07/09/2009 - 02:08 (Reply to #6)
cyrus

My box has also been updated to CentOS 5.3 for a while now with no known issues.

Thu, 07/09/2009 - 21:28
webwzrd

Piece of cake! Can't find any issues after the update and reboot.

Mon, 07/20/2009 - 09:16
Joe
Joe's picture

CentOS minor revision updates are generally safe as houses. They indicate a re-roll of the installation media and such, rather than incompatible changes. Incompatible changes are major version bumps (4 to 5, for example).

In other words: Don't hesitate to perform updates from one minor revision to the next. They are not a "new version", they are a new checkpoint in an existing versions lifecycle. Security relies on you running the latest updates.

--

Check out the forum guidelines!

Mon, 07/20/2009 - 09:42 (Reply to #9)
webwzrd

I guess I've gotten use to Virtualmin letting me know whenever there are updates available, but apparently this doesn't include a minor OS update. Any way it could?

Mon, 07/20/2009 - 09:52 (Reply to #10)
andreychek

Virtualmin can notify you if any update is available for your system, it shouldn't matter if it's a single package, or a minor RPM update. From yum's perspective, it's all just a new package version.

In Virtualmin, if you go into System Information, and within the "Package Updates" you click the "Virtualmin Package Updates" link, it'll take you to a screen where you can configure that.

Make sure "States to display" includes "Updates" and that "Packages to show:" is set to "All Packages".

-Eric

Mon, 07/20/2009 - 10:08 (Reply to #11)
webwzrd

PERFECT! - Thank you Eric.

Brian

Thu, 02/04/2010 - 03:00
langdon4487

Hello...

It's generally considered that upgrading minor versions (eg from 5.2 to 5.3) is usually quite easy and harmless, and normally doesn't pose any problems.

Upgrading from major versions (eg from 5.9 to 6.0) is possible but not recommended. If you chose this path you should expect major shindings, lib- and yum dependencies-mayhem and all sorts of weird things happening and/or a botched operating system which will require a complete reinstall anyway.

It's your choice really, and depends on how brave and much fingerspitzgefühl you have, alternatively how much time you have on your hands. ;-)

With that said, I once chose to upgrade a Fedora Core 4 to Fedora Core 6. I went fine finally but took me a week or so to solve all the dependicies problems for yum. Since then I've never even considered upgrading major versions.

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