redhat-upgrade-tool - the Red Hat Upgrader
Will Woods <wwoods@redhat.com> :redhat_upgrade_dracut: https://github.com/dashea/redhat-upgrade-dracut/
This is 'redhat-upgrade-tool', the Red Hat Upgrade tool. This repo/package has the following contents:
- Frontend / pre-upgrade
-
This is the GUI/CLI frontend. It’s responsible for setting up the system to be upgraded: downloading packages, modifying the bootloader, etc.
-
Files:
redhat_upgrade_tool/,redhat_upgrade_tool.py
-
- Upgrade services
-
Part of a distro-neutral framework for performing major system upgrades using 'systemd' and 'dracut', with a 'plymouth' progress screen. This part lets your system switch back to the upgrade initramfs after setting up your disks.
-
Files:
systemd/
-
The actual upgrade is handled inside the initramfs by 'redhat-upgrade-dracut', which can be found here: {redhat_upgrade_dracut}
Building it yourself
For you brave pioneers who want to do it all yourselves, you will need at
least two systems: one with the _new_ release (to build upgrade images), and
then any _old_ systems you want to upgrade.
Building upgrade images
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You'll need a system running the _new_ release for this.
See {redhat_upgrade_dracut}[the redhat-upgrade-dracut README] for details, but roughly:
. Install 'redhat-upgrade-dracut' and its dependencies
* deps: 'dracut', 'rpm-devel', 'plymouth-devel', 'glib2-devel'
. `make install`
. `./make-redhat-upgrade-repo REPODIR`
* this requires 'createrepo'
. Copy REPODIR somewhere HTTP-accessible
Upgrading old system using `redhat-upgrade-tool`
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
. Install build requirements
* 'python-devel', 'systemd-devel'
. Install frontend(s) and systemd support files
* `make install`
. Run redhat-upgrade-tool to prepare system
* `redhat-upgrade-tool --network 7.0 --instrepo http://your-repo.host/REPODIR`
** This will take a while. _Be patient._
** You can cancel it and it'll resume downloading where it left off.
. Reboot
* *System Upgrade* boot menu item will be chosen automatically
. Wait 60-90 minutes for the upgrade to complete
. Enjoy your newly-upgraded system
* upgrade logs are in `/var/log/upgrade.log`
How network upgrades work
-------------------------
There's two simple rules that control where `redhat-upgrade-tool` looks for packages when
doing network upgrades.
Given `redhat-upgrade-tool --network $VERSION`, redhat-upgrade-tool will:
1. Use the existing repo configuration, with `$releasever` set to `$VERSION`
2. Add an extra 'instrepo' for fetching boot images; this repo defaults to
https://mirrors.fedoraproject.org/metalink/repo=fedora-install-$releasever&arch=$basearch
`$VERSION` could be any string; currently `redhat-upgrade-tool` accepts numbers
greater than the current system version. No explicit validation of `$VERSION`
is done beyond that.
If the user gives an invalid version (e.g. `redhat-upgrade-tool --network 31337`), redhat-upgrade-tool
will still set up repos and attempt to contact them, but they won't be found,
which will cause the upgrade to fail. So invalid versions are _implicitly_
rejected.
For repo maintainers
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If you are a repo maintainer and you want upgrades to work, you should ensure
that the URLs in your `.repo` file will work for any valid `$releasever`,
including "rawhide".
If you change the layout of your repos, set up symlinks/redirects for the old
URL schemes.
Conversely, you should also ensure that the URLs _don't_ work for _invalid_
versions. So you should avoid wildcard redirects or URLs without
`$releasever`.
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