OS Update
Have been running a CentOS7 box here since 2008, and that distro is EOL so time to update.
Am also using cPanel and they have an upgrade path to a few different distros. Am leaning toward sticking with a RHEL variant (most likely Rocky), even given the drama over at Big Blue these days.
Have any other Linode members used cPanel's Elevate project to upgrade? If so, how did it work out?
Would much rather do an in-place upgrade than (temporarily) starting a new node with a new cPanel license and migrating everything over.
Am a little hazy on how this would work anyway, wondering just how one updates the image from which their node boots? The kernel is obviously newer (6.2.9) than when I first spun it up fifteen years ago, so is the "CentOS 7" indicator for /dev/sda in the node's config just a label, or actually an image it's using?
1 Reply
hdiep
Linode Staff
I don't have experience with using cPanel's Elevate project to upgrade, but I did find a few resources where there are instructions on how to do this:
- How to upgrade from CentOS 7 to AlmaLinux 8 with cPanel ELevate – cPanel
- cPanel elevate documentation
Would much rather do an in-place upgrade than (temporarily) starting a new node with a new cPanel license and migrating everything over.
There are some benefits to the inline upgrade, mainly the speed and ease that it can be performed with. While quick and easy is always a great option, there is a chance certain applications that are installed on the Linode may not be directly compatible with the newer version you are upgrading to. If you'd like to explore what this option would look like you can review our related guide to see the steps that would need to be taken:
I do strongly recommend going with a clean install. By creating a new Linode already running CentOS, there is less risk of something going wrong, but it is more work than upgrading directly from the server compared to an inline upgrade. I'd like to mention that we only offer CentOS stream 8 and not CentOS 8. So if you prefer to have CentOS 8, you can go with an inline upgrade, but it's highly recommended that you backup your data before proceeding!
If you are switching to another distribution altogether, we recommend reviewing the documentation on how to Install a Custom Distribution on a Linode. We also recommend deploying the new operating system to a new Linode, then rebuilding your applications and copying data over from your Linodes running on CentOS 8, before deleting them.
The kernel is obviously newer (6.2.9) than when I first spun it up fifteen years ago, so is the "CentOS 7" indicator for /dev/sda in the node's config just a label, or actually an image it's using?
It's just a label, but if you originally made it with our CentOS 7 image, it would default to that.
Lastly, I recommend going over our Community Post below for key differences between inline and clean installs and what steps you should take for a smoother transition: