Hi,

I have a VPS server (x64) with 5 IPs and plesk onyx. The centos 6.6 is causing some little trouble with cURL.

I think using centos 7 would solve this.

What is the easy way to remove centos 6 and install centos 7 without losing every configurations/server hardening, etc. that has been done already.


My access to the server is SSH but I am not sure my host would install centos 7 for me because all their packages are centos 6.6. but I could alsways ask. However, if ever they don't want to, what would be the best way for me to do this?

I so have acces to another (home) server (x64) where I can install centos 7 and do all the conf/harding (without plesk) to prepare/practice.

I was planning to install centos 7 on the home server (x64) and then try to run one of the vps backups made by plesk to see what would happend. Only thing is that the IPs would not work... so I would have to trick my computer with the windows host file when accessing the home server.

I've never done such a move new centos 7 with backup from old centos 6.6, etc.) so I was wondering if any of you have some suggestions for me. Is this the way to do this? or should I take another way?

Once that is done, I would do the same thing with the VPS and hope it reacts the same way as the home server.

Thanks!!

EDIT: also, is this a good time to leave centos 6.6?

About the best you can do is to back up /etc, /home, /var, /usr, /srv; then create the centos 7 installation; then use dd to copy the centos 7 installation by shh, over the centos 6.6 installation; and then use rsync to copy the back up directories to the new server.

You would undoubtedly have hours of tweaking to do. But, in the end, it is possible. To copy the new system to the server, you use nc and dd. Here's a post that explains it: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ommand-362506/

wow thanks for the info.

A lot of things I have never tried in there. I'll take it slowly and practice first.

Why don't you feel you can fix the curl issue?

Well the cURL on centos 6 seems old, don't you think? Anyways, the different pakages are updated already. I also figure that updating centos and apache can't hurt and I will need to do it eventualy anyway. Make sence?

Not really. Curl is such a low-level utility, there's not a whole lot of changes from version to version.

But upgrading CentOS to 7 is recommended, as full update support ended in May 2017 (although maintenance updates continue until 2020)

For CentOS, best bet is to follow the Migration Guide. In place upgrades are tricky for CentOS (the redhat-upgrade-utility hasn't been ported to centos well, it seems)
https://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/MigrationGuide

Just to get a little more info...
in /etc, there are kernel, centos-release, etc. So... what will happend when I overrite the fresh centos 7 intall with the backed-up folder (/etc) with , won't this mix up centos 6.6 and centos 7? Can't this create problems?

Anyone have a list of what files/folders should not be changed, or will running afterwards fix it all?

Obviously new at this.

Yeah, I heard that the tool is not good for Centos.

The official and approved way to 'migrate' is to back up your SETTINGS and critical data and then do a full clean install of the higher version. That has been the only RH supported major upgrade path until very recently, and CentOS does not have a better way. Replacing entire folders, or even files, is not recommended: it has been known to break systems in ways that can be immediately catastrophic, or that can hide for weeks and then sneak out and bite you.

HOME folders are pretty safe to clone entire, but system folders and files may change significantly between major versions.

The better way might be to download the very latest sources for curl and compile it for CentOS 6, or find a different tool to use.

The LONG term solution is to upgrade to CentOS 7, keeping in mind that this may not impact the specific problem.

When you DO upgrade, Plan carefully, get other eyes to peer-review your plan, have a backout path, and document everything. The more you rush things the more likely you are to shoot yourself in the foot.

Thanks, yeah I had a wierd feeling about this. Anyway, I have asked my host if they can help with any part and/or if they have suggestions. I would be testing it out on my home server first so if it messes up, its still all good.

I'm not in a hurry since I don't want to mess it up! I rather take a long terme solution to this.