[vserver] Upgrading from Fedora Core 5 to CentOS 5

As promised, in the distant past, here are my notes on upgrading from
Fedora Core 5 to CentOS 5.

First off make sure you can loose the system, backup all the data you
can think of. Configuration files, for both the host and guests. Since
the first system I did only had one guest that wasn't being used yet I
didn't. The second had running guests but they could all be rebuilt. I
just didn't want to take the system down for a complete Linux-Vserver
install/build. YMMV.

Next retrieve the CentOS 5 Release RPMs. There are two needed. I used
wget but I believe you could just use rpm to do it.

http://mirrors.usc.edu/pub/linux/distributions/centos/5.0/os/i386/CentOS/centos-release-5-0.0.el5.centos.2.i386.rpm
http://mirrors.usc.edu/pub/linux/distributions/centos/5.0/os/i386/CentOS/centos-release-notes-5.0.0-2.i386.rpm

To keep the number of bullets to the foot to a minimum I disable
Daniel's repository first; just upgrade from Fedora Core 5 to CentOS 5
without any Linux-Vserver involvement.

Then hold you breath and run the command:

        yum -y upgrade

Note that is upgrade not update.

You will probably have failures due to dependencies. The first system
and bind installed in the host for some odd reason and the upgrade would
not work. I used

        rpm -e $( rpm -qa | grep bind )

Which failed because of bind dependencies so I got mean:

        rpm -e NetworkManager
        rpm -e caching-nameserver
        rpm -e yp-tools ypbind

and again.

        rpm -e $( rpm -qa | grep bind )
        
New dependency error came up so after several _other_ errors I next used:

        rpm -e java-1.4.2-gcj-compat jessie gnu-crypto
        rpm -e frysk

And finally:

        yum -y upgrade

Wait a long time depending on your connection speed and how busy the
CentOS mirrors are.

Next either enable Daniel's repository or use the command:

        yum -y update --enablerepo=dhozac-vserver

Check your startup scripts (ntsysv) and make sure vprocunhide,
vservers-default, and linux-vserver are set to start.

Reboot and cross your fingers.

The other system I did had other RPM dependency issues. These can be a
pain but if you have a clue about solving them then this beats the heck
out of doing a cold install. I noted that the slimmer, software-wise,
the host system the easier the upgrade went. The first system was
originally build as a lights-out server. The second had X etc.
installed so gave me a worst time while upgrading.

Enjoy and good luck,
Rod

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