Chapter 4. Reviewing the pre-upgrade report

To assess upgradability of your system, start the pre-upgrade process by using the leapp preupgrade command. During this phase, the Leapp utility collects data about the system, assesses upgradability, and generates a pre-upgrade report. The pre-upgrade report summarizes potential problems and suggests recommended solutions. The report also helps you decide whether it is possible or advisable to proceed with the upgrade.

Important

Always review the entire pre-upgrade report, even when the report finds no inhibitors to the upgrade. The pre-upgrade report contains recommended actions to complete before the upgrade to ensure that the upgraded system functions correctly.

Reviewing a pre-upgrade report can also be useful if you want to perform a fresh installation of a RHEL 8 system instead of the in-place upgrade process.

You can assess upgradability in the pre-upgrade phase using either of the following ways:

  • Review the pre-upgrade report in the generated leapp-report.txt file and manually resolve reported problems using the command-line interface.
  • Use the web console to review the report, apply automated remediations where available, and fix remaining problems using the suggested remediation hints.
Note

You can process the pre-upgrade report by using your own custom scripts, for example, to compare results from multiple reports across different environments. For more information, see Automating your Red Hat Enterprise Linux pre-upgrade report workflow.

Important

The pre-upgrade report cannot simulate the entire in-place upgrade process and therefore cannot identify all inhibiting problems with your system. As a result, your in-place upgrade might still be terminated even after you have reviewed and remediated all problems in the report. For example, the pre-upgrade report cannot detect issues related to broken package downloads.

4.1. Assessing upgradability from the command line

Identify potential upgrade problems during the pre-upgrade phase by using the command-line interface.

Prerequisites

Procedure

  1. On your RHEL 7 system, perform the pre-upgrade phase: 

    # leapp preupgrade --target <target_os_version>

    Replace <target_os_version> with the target OS version, for example 8.6. If no target OS version is defined, Leapp uses the default target OS version specified in the table 1.1 in Supported upgrade paths.

  2. Examine the report in the /var/log/leapp/leapp-report.txt file and manually resolve all the reported problems. Some reported problems contain remediation suggestions. Inhibitor problems prevent you from upgrading until you have resolved them.

    The report contains the following risk factor levels:

    High
    Very likely to result in a deteriorated system state.
    Medium
    Can impact both the system and applications.
    Low
    Should not impact the system but can have an impact on applications.
    Info
    Informational with no expected impact to the system or applications.

  3. In certain system configurations, the Leapp utility generates true or false questions that you must answer manually. If the pre-upgrade report contains a Missing required answers in the answer file message, complete the following steps:

    1. Open the /var/log/leapp/answerfile file and review the true or false questions.

    2. Manually edit the /var/log/leapp/answerfile file, uncomment the confirm line of the file by deleting the # symbol, and confirm your answer as True or False. For more information, see the Leapp answerfile.

      Note

      Alternatively, you can answer the true or false question by running the following command: 

      # leapp answer --section <question_section>.<field_name>=<answer>

      For example, to confirm a False response to the question Disable pam_pkcs11 module in PAM configuration?, execute the following command: 

      # leapp answer --section remove_pam_pkcs11_module_check.confirm=False
  4. Repeat the previous steps to rerun the pre-upgrade report to verify that you have resolved all critical issues.

4.2. Assessing upgradability and applying automated remediations through the web console

Identify potential problems in the pre-upgrade phase and apply automated remediations by using the web console.

Prerequisites

Procedure

  1. Install the cockpit-leapp plug-in: 

    # dnf install cockpit-leapp

    Log in to the web console as root or as a user that has permissions to enter administrative commands with sudo. See Managing systems using the RHEL web console for more information about the web console.

  2. On your RHEL 7 system, perform the pre-upgrade phase either from the command-line interface or from the web console terminal: 

    # leapp preupgrade --target <target_os_version>

    Replace <target_os_version> with the target OS version, for example 8.6. If no target OS version is defined, Leapp uses the default target OS version specified in the table 1.1 in Supported upgrade paths.

  3. In the web console, select Upgrade Report from the navigation menu to review all reported problems. Inhibitor problems prevent you from upgrading until you have resolved them. To view a problem in detail, select the row to open the Detail pane.

    Figure 4.1. In-place upgrade report in the web console

    In-place upgrade report in the web console

    The report contains the following risk factor levels:

    High
    Very likely to result in a deteriorated system state.
    Medium
    Can impact both the system and applications.
    Low
    Should not impact the system but can have an impact on applications.
    Info
    Informational with no expected impact to the system or applications.

  4. In certain configurations, the Leapp utility generates true or false questions that you must answer manually. If the Upgrade Report contains a Missing required answers in the answer file row, complete the following steps:

    1. Select the Missing required answers in the answer file row to open the Detail pane. The default answer is stated at the end of the remediation command.
    2. To confirm the default answer, select Add to Remediation Plan to execute the remediation later or Run Remediation to execute the remediation immediately.

    3. To select the non-default answer instead, execute the leapp answer command in the terminal, specifying the question you are responding to and your confirmed answer. 

      # leapp answer --section <question_section>.<field_name>=<answer>

      For example, to confirm a False response to the question Disable pam_pkcs11 module in PAM configuration?, execute the following command 

      # leapp answer --section remove_pam_pkcs11_module_check.confirm=False
      Note

      You can also manually edit the /var/log/leapp/answerfile file, uncomment the confirm line of the file by deleting the # symbol, and confirm your answer as True or False. For more information, see the Leapp answerfile example.

  5. Some problems have remediation commands that you can run to automatically resolve the problems. You can run remediation commands individually or all together in the remediation command.

    1. To run a single remediation command, open the Detail pane for the problem and click Run Remediation.

    2. To add a remediation command to the remediation plan, open the Detail pane for the problem and click Add to Remediation Plan.

      Figure 4.2. Detail pane

      Detail pane
    3. To run the remediation plan containing all added remediation commands, click the Remediation plan link in the top right corner above the report. Click Execute Remediation Plan to execute all listed commands.
  6. After reviewing the report and resolving all reported problems, repeat steps 3-7 to rerun the report to verify that you have resolved all critical issues.