Upgrading from RHEL 7.1 to 7.3

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What's involved in upgrading from RHEL 7.1 to RHEL 7.3? Is there documentation that details the process of upgrading? (I've looked through access.redhat.com and am not finding it, if it's there)

Responses

Hi Paul,

My advise: read the release notes for RHEL 7.3 to see if some of the software you are using has been replace, to find out whether or not you might loose vital functionalities.

If you do not expect problems follow this recipe:

1a) for a physical server: make a complete backup of your system that can be fully recovered. If you want to be completely save, this might have to be a ghost image use e.g. g4l. 1b) for virtual server: make an offline snapshot (in powered down state) of the virtual server.

2) run yum -y update 3) if you encounter issues come back this discussion for you need help or open a support case.

Success,

Jan Gerrit Kootstra

Hi Paul,

My recommendation is to perform a fresh installation of the system - although it is possible to upgrade the system, experience shows that in most of the cases something goes wrong (sometimes less, sometimes more). Especially in your case it is very likely that important stuff may brake, because it would be an upgrade from RHEL edition 7.1 to 7.3, too much changed between the releases of RHEL versions 7.1 / 7.2 / 7.3. Performing a clean Installation and configuring the new operating system will most probably take less time than fixing issues. You may want to consider waiting a few weeks until the final of RHEL 7.4 will be released, because even more things changed : a jump from GNOME 3.14 to GNOME 3.22 included.

Cheers :)
Christian

Yes, there is always a risk involved. Check out whether your apps are compatible with RHEL 7.3 release. Then plan for a proper backup (full backup may be good...... ReaR would be a good choice which can be used for bare-metal recovery as well), run sosreport which would hold system configs in case you may need it later for reference, remove any unnecessary packages from system so that you could keep it minimal, un-mount any NFS or remote storage references (I assume that root is on local hard drive), stop all third party apps services and processes, log out all non-root users, then run 'yum update', after the update check if everything successful, you may see some new packages loaded, check if initramfs image is created properly under /boot, if there any third party modules which are required during boot process then you may need re-create the image with those modules, please check.

If your intention is to get the security updates then check out this link for further help: https://access.redhat.com/solutions/10021

All the best!

Hi Sadashiva, may I add something to your useful information ? In case Paul decides to upgrade the system, I would like to recommend clonezilla for creating a system backup image before. I am using this tool for years and it never let me down. :)

Yes, that is also a good choice. I'm wondering if there is a way to send a private message..

Private messages would be a nice feature - until now I found nothing like this to contact other members. :)

yeah, I found this, you can sent a message to me using this link, not sure if this is encourged by community : https://www.redhat.com/wapps/training/certification/EmailForm.html?emailto=65&searchNonce=1496836632650

No, doesn't work, the link opens RED HAT CERTIFICATION CENTRAL - Find a Red Hat Certified Professional with some empty fields having to be filled with additional information - so seems not meant to be used here.

Since it was posted twice i removed this message block .... (

Thank you all for your comments. We have a monthly patch cycle so I run "yum update" at least once a month and install everything.

This system was originally installed on 7.1. Other servers were installed with 7.3. However, the Satellite server sees this machine as 7.3. Would a 7.1 system automatically get updated to 7.3 running a monthly "yum update"?

Where this came up in the first place, we also have a monthly Nessus scan run and Nessus is flagging this as a 7.1 system. I'm wondering if maybe Nessus is reading the /etc/system-release file to get the version number (which yum probably doesn't modify) /etc/system-release says "Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 7.1 (Maipo)"

So, maybe I already have a 7.3 system, and Nessus is just reading it wrong?

This is what I meant with "in most cases something goes wrong", this should be the output :
$ sudo cat /etc/system-release
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 7.3 (Maipo)
Anyway, you can try to find out the state of the system and fix issues in case it is possible. :)

Also, just to add, this system doesn't run x-windows so all the Gnome stuff doesn't matter in this case. And this system is virtual, not a physical machine.

Please check the release notes, you will see that a lot changed under the hood, so it's not only GNOME.
But of course the decision is up to you, I just wanted to point out the advantages of a fresh installation.
And it makes no difference, if the operating system is installed on bare metal or in a virtual machine. :)

Ok, as I said above, I run "yum update" monthly and install every available patch. So do I have a 7.1 system or a 7.3 system?

Theoretically you should be running RHEL 7.3 ... theoretically ! But to get sure you should examine the system - for instance by comparing installed packages with those you find on https://access.redhat.com/downloads/content/package-browser. :)

Thanks. I'm just going to edit /etc/system-release and change it to 7.3 and see if the Nessus error message goes away. Every time I run patching, that 7.1 system gets the same patches as the other ones do, so I'm going to assume it's actually 7.3 now.

You're welcome Paul, let's hope that everything is okay then - I wish you good luck ! :)

we do the Yum Update also; however there are times we need to refresh the repo; or reinstall an rpm. We do not update as frequently as you do though, and are just starting with 7.3. I would guess that whatever rpm provides the /etc/system-release, either does not overwrite it due to some bug in the update process. Your update should pick it up and replace it. Perhaps a Yum clean all may help. Good luck

Paul, I noticed your comments, most of our setup doesn't allow to patch monthly, also, I am sure going to update systems monthly would not a recommended (best practice) way, saying so, there is not any rule which restricts patching activity and if environment permits then you may go with that.

When an update is run it would update the system to the latest release applicable. However, there are times when we restricts updating certain packages either by excluding them or setting up version lock to satisfy apps requirement or listing exclude packages on the command line itself , that's when redhat-release remains with old one.

Also, the file /etc/system-release is soft linked to /etc/redhat-release file, so if /etc/redhat-release is showing updated one then system-release file should reflect the same. If not then you may re-create link of /etc/system-release . Please check on this.

[root@localhost ~]# ll /etc/system-release
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 14 Jan 10 06:56 /etc/system-release -> redhat-release
[root@localhost ~]# rpm -qf /etc/system-release
redhat-release-server-7.1-1.el7.x86_64
[root@localhost ~]# rpm -qf /etc/redhat-release 
redhat-release-server-7.1-1.el7.x86_64

Sadashiva,

We usually have to address security vulnerabilities as soon as they come out, so typically there are at least a few each month that have to be patched. That's why we do it monthly. I had actually opened a ticket with Redhat support, and they confirmed what was said here, that running "yum update" does move the version # from 7.1 to 7.3. The soft link between system-release -> redhat-release was there; I had manually edited system-release to change 7.1 to 7.3; hopefully that doesn't mess up the link for the future.

Paul

If the /etc/system-release file is not getting updated or even after edit rolls back to earlier then there might be something which is watching the file change in your setup which might be rolling it back once changed. Otherwise, updating /etc/redhat-release normally should update /etc/system-release as well.

All the best!

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