Centos EOL moving existing Linode to a new distro
I have seen several very old posts about changing distros of an existing Linode. I was hoping that there was some more current info on how to make a distro change since Centos is reaching its EOL.
My current OS is CentOS Linux 7.9.2009
I am also running a local server on Ubuntu Linux 22.04.2
I was considering switching to Ubuntu for consistency. Its getting too hard to try and keep the different commands straight in my head.
The Linode server is hosting about 5 different domains and has a private IP address from Linode.
Is there a simple way of setting up the new Linode running Ubuntu and then transferring the virtual servers onto it ie. some kind of script or is it basically the old manual method? I haven't had to deal with this for years so I am just trying to get my head wrapped around it again.
3 Replies
The key is to set up Apache on Ubuntu to the exact same structure that you have in CentOS… where the document root is to be, where the virtual hosts and conf files are to be, etc. Once everything is in the same place on Ubuntu as it is on CentOS, you can then just "scp" or "rsync" the apache files from CentOS to Ubuntu.
As for MySQL, just MySQLDump your databases and re-load them on Ubuntu (via phpMySQL or the mysql terminal commands.)
Moving to a server with a different OS is never easy and never quick… at least not in my experience.
YMMV.
Yes, I guess I will just have to bite the bullet and do it. I will probably wait until the fall when I actually have the time to deal with the issues that will probably arise.
I have webmin/virtualmin running on a couple of my servers so maybe I will be able to get everything set up on the new distro and then create backups of the existing virtual servers and then bring them over to the new distro. There are just so many little things that get changed/customized over the years that I forget about.
tlambert
Linode Staff
The posts on the Community Site might be a bit old but the info is still relevant. There's also this doc titled How to Upgrade a Linux System to the Latest Distribution that should help you out.
Like you mentioned, it'll just take some time. Website services are pretty standard but since you're switching distros, you may want to budget for a bit of extra time just in case there are compatibility issues.