Centos 8 -> Centos Stream -> Rocky Linux

pajamian · October 25, 2021, 6:55pm

While it is generally safe, there are edge cases where migration will break down and require some amount of manual work to get the system back up and running. I would highly suggest that you do not attempt migration unless you backup your system first, and then make sure it completed successfully before rebooting. Make sure that you save a copy of the migrate2rocky.log file if anything goes wrong and you can ask for help in that case (note you will likely get faster support in matter most chat, or IRC than here).

In the vast majority of cases you should be able to download and run migrate2rocky without issue and it will just work, so you don’t have to do a bunch of manual stuff, but do beware that there is no guarantee.

The time it takes to migrate will depend on your internet connection and generally takes significantly longer than 20 minutes (but not always), but the machine should be able to continue running during the migration. A reboot will be required at the end.

Do note that you will be left with an updated system, so slightly newer releases of packages than what is in CentOS 8.3. This should not affect your system.

I don’t see anything in your listed configuration that should cause an issue, but again there are no guarantees.

pajamian · October 25, 2021, 6:59pm

There should currently be no need to convert back to CentOS Linux before running migrate2rocky, and in fact attempting to do so with random instructions on the internet can leave your system in a state that is less than ideal. migrate2rocky is now designed to be able to migrate direct from CentOS Stream systems.

pseud · October 26, 2021, 9:06am

So, would the recommended advice now be to swap back to CentOS Stream?

Perhaps it might also be worth updating the howto here with big loud words at the top of the page that it is no longer necessary to get a system into a stable CentOS state (cf CentOS Stream) before the migration given the amount of noise on the Internet that says the opposite?

pajamian · October 28, 2021, 7:33am

I see nothing on that page which suggests that migrate2rocky won’t work with CentOS Stream. There is also nothing wrong with “getting your system to a stable state” (which usually involves just running dnf update first, although migrate2rocky will do this for you so it isn’t required). Converting a CentOS Stream 8 system to CentOS 8 is not exactly what I would call getting the system to a “stable” state (and is, in fact the opposite, imo).

Also we can’t be responsible for what every tech article on the internet posts and I would not recommend any of them as proper instructions for migrating to Rocky Linux simply because we do not vet them for accuracy.

That said, if you feel you have a good suggestion for modifying that page, you are welcome to submit a pull request for it at documentation/migrate2rocky.md at main · rocky-linux/documentation · GitHub

jlehtone · October 28, 2021, 1:56pm

There are many possible (if not probable) scenarios – totally unrelated to migration – that would require full reinstall and restore from backups. If one is not able to R&R, then one is always at risk.

If you do have solid R&R routine, then there is no fear in migration; you can reinstall if it fails.

On the other hand, if your service does not tolerate any downtime, then you better have duplication / HA anyway and again taking one server down should be no issue.

pseud · October 28, 2021, 6:55pm

Done, thank you:

github.com/rocky-linux/documentation

Update migrate2rocky.md

rocky-linux:main ← xpseudonym:patch-1

opened 06:53PM - 28 Oct 21 UTC

xpseudonym

+2 -2

See here: https://forums.rockylinux.org/t/centos-8-centos-stream-rocky-linux/23…43/24?u=pseud ## Author checklist (to be completed by original Author) - [ ] Is this document a good fit for the Rocky project ? - [ ] Is this a non-English contribution? - [ ] Title and Author MetaTags have been inserted into the document - [ ] If applicable, steps and instructions have been tested to work on a real system - [ ] Did you perform an initial self-review to fix basic typos and grammatical correctness The above don't seem applicable to documentation ## Rocky Documentation checklist (to be completed by Rocky team) - [ ] 1st Pass (Check that document is good fit for project and author checklist completed) - [ ] 2nd Pass (Technical Review - check for technical correctness) - [ ] 3rd Pass (Basic Editorial Review) - [ ] 4th Pass (Detailed Editorial Review and Peer Review) - [ ] 5th Pass (Include document in TOC) - [ ] Final pass/approval (Final Review)

mjz · February 15, 2022, 4:32pm

Can I run the migrate to rocky script from a PuTTY remote terminal? Or will it terminate prematurely?
Thanks

mjz · February 16, 2022, 7:33pm

Pajamain …
My Centos stream system has the following repos:
entOS-Stream-AppStream.repo CentOS-Stream-PowerTools.repo epel.repo
CentOS-Stream-BaseOS.repo CentOS-Stream-RealTime.repo epel-testing-modular.repo
CentOS-Stream-Debuginfo.repo CentOS-Stream-ResilientStorage.repo epel-testing.repo
CentOS-Stream-Extras.repo CentOS-Stream-Sources.repo home:alex_sh.xxxx
CentOS-Stream-HighAvailability.repo epel-modular.repo redhat.repo
CentOS-Stream-Media.repo epel-next.repo
CentOS-Stream-NFV.repo epel-next-testing.repo

Anything pop out to you I should be concerned before trying the migrate2rocky script? thanks

pajamian · February 17, 2022, 9:54pm

You can, but if the connection gets interrupted mid-migration it could cause failure. I recommend using screen or tmux to prevent this.

Also it’s always a good idea to have some form of out of band access in case things go really wrong.

pajamian · February 17, 2022, 9:55pm

The only repo file I would have any concern about here is redhat.repo, which generally means that subscription manager is running on the system. I would want to know what repositories, if any, are defined in there.

mjz · February 17, 2022, 10:26pm

thanks much for getting back to me!
I’ll take a look at the redhat repo and see what’s in there.

Right now I want to avoid installing Rocky from scratch as well as corrupting my current system. Even with a backup, it will be a pain in the neck to get my servers back to where they were if the migrate tool doesn’t work (RDP, Samba, etc.)

pajamian · February 17, 2022, 11:03pm

Probably the worst case scenario you would be looking at is having to complete the migration manually. I have yet to see a system where that can’t be done, but it can be scary if the migration fails and your system is left in an unstable state. That said, a backup is always recommended regardless.

Also irt the other repo files, naming the files doesn’t actually give me much of an idea what’s inside them. I can say you shouldn’t have issues but I can’t see details as to what repos are enabled, etc. Probably the output of dnf repoinfo \* would be much more helpful.

mjz · February 18, 2022, 2:47pm

rep info

The link above is to the file output of “dnf repoinfo *”. Thanks for taking a look. Today is the day i will try to migrate my system over to Rocky if possible.

pajamian · February 18, 2022, 5:06pm

Those look fine to me

Harshad · March 10, 2022, 1:50pm

Hi,

I am trying to migrate from Stream to Rocky Linux but its giving me below error .

Migration from Katello-modified systems is not supported by migrate2rocky. See the README file for details.

Earlier this system was registered to RH Satellite 6, I unregister the system, removed subscription-manager package and pointed the system directly to centos mirror via a proxy.

Then I performed yum update which went smooth and finally followed steps to migrate to Rocky and encountered above error . Below are the repositories currently enabled on the system.

[root@host migrate2rocky]# yum repolist -v
Loaded plugins: builddep, changelog, config-manager, copr, debug, debuginfo-install, download, generate_completion_cache, groups-manager, kpatch, needs-restarting, playground, repoclosure, repodiff, repograph, repomanage, reposync
YUM version: 4.7.0
cachedir: /var/cache/dnf
Last metadata expiration check: 1:57:51 ago on Thu 10 Mar 2022 05:19:55 PM IST.
Repo-id            : appstream
Repo-name          : CentOS Stream 8 - AppStream
Repo-revision      : 8-stream
Repo-distro-tags      : [cpe:/o:centos-stream:centos-stream:8]:  ,  , 8, C, O, S, S, a, e, e, m, n, r, t, t
Repo-updated       : Mon 07 Mar 2022 10:44:11 PM IST
Repo-pkgs          : 16,864
Repo-available-pkgs: 15,051
Repo-size          : 38 G
Repo-mirrors       : http://mirrorlist.centos.org/?release=8-stream&arch=x86_64&repo=AppStream&infra=stock
Repo-baseurl       : http://centos.mirrors.estointernet.in/8-stream/AppStream/x86_64/os/ (9 more)
Repo-expire        : 172,800 second(s) (last: Thu 10 Mar 2022 05:19:53 PM IST)
Repo-filename      : /etc/yum.repos.d/CentOS-Stream-AppStream.repo

Repo-id            : baseos
Repo-name          : CentOS Stream 8 - BaseOS
Repo-revision      : 8-stream
Repo-distro-tags      : [cpe:/o:centos-stream:centos-stream:8]:  ,  , 8, C, O, S, S, a, e, e, m, n, r, t, t
Repo-updated       : Mon 07 Mar 2022 10:43:08 PM IST
Repo-pkgs          : 7,973
Repo-available-pkgs: 7,971
Repo-size          : 10 G
Repo-mirrors       : http://mirrorlist.centos.org/?release=8-stream&arch=x86_64&repo=BaseOS&infra=stock
Repo-baseurl       : http://centos.mirror.snu.edu.in/centos/8-stream/BaseOS/x86_64/os/ (9 more)
Repo-expire        : 172,800 second(s) (last: Thu 10 Mar 2022 05:19:54 PM IST)
Repo-filename      : /etc/yum.repos.d/CentOS-Stream-BaseOS.repo

Repo-id            : extras
Repo-name          : CentOS Stream 8 - Extras
Repo-revision      : 1644854003
Repo-updated       : Mon 14 Feb 2022 09:23:23 PM IST
Repo-pkgs          : 85
Repo-available-pkgs: 85
Repo-size          : 910 k
Repo-mirrors       : http://mirrorlist.centos.org/?release=8-stream&arch=x86_64&repo=extras&infra=stock
Repo-baseurl       : http://centos.mirror.snu.edu.in/centos/8-stream/extras/x86_64/os/ (9 more)
Repo-expire        : 172,800 second(s) (last: Thu 10 Mar 2022 05:19:55 PM IST)
Repo-filename      : /etc/yum.repos.d/CentOS-Stream-Extras.repo
Total packages: 24,922

Output of yum history

[root@host migrate2rocky]# yum history
ID     | Command line                                                                                                                            | Date and time    | Action(s)      | Altered
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    48 | remove subscription-manager                                                                                                             | 2022-03-10 19:00 | Removed        |   11 EE
    47 | remove katello-ca-consumer-satellite6.noarch                                                                             | 2022-03-10 19:00 | Removed        |    1
    46 | update                                                                                                                                  | 2022-03-10 16:28 | ?, E, I, U     |  345 EE
    45 | update

Harshad · March 15, 2022, 8:53am

Hi,
Can anyone help here to provide some pointers?

Thanks,

pajamian · March 31, 2022, 6:01am

See: rocky-tools/README.md at main · rocky-linux/rocky-tools · GitHub