fc5 to fc12 upgrade

[sigi9009]

Hallo People,

I have the following task to do:
upgrade fc5 to fc12, system is used as server,
mysql, apache, mediawiki, openvpn,... are installed already.

i want to upgrade with anaconda. my idea was to upgrade from fc5->fc6, fc6->f7, fc7->fc8 ... fc11->fc12.
Is it really necessary to upgrade step by step?

I dont want do make a total new fc12 installation because of the media wiki. The backup function of the media wiki doesnt work. I fear that i cant restore the media wiki as it is now. So i decided that the best way is an upgrade(or a lot of upgrades).

Is it possible to tell the upgrade Assisstant to not upgrade apache, to not upgrade mysql, to not upgrade openvpn?
This would be good because the old packages use the old config.


please help!!!

[glennzo]

Never a good idea to make such a large jump, i.e 5 to 12, even if you plan on going one version at a time. It's too risky and you are stand to lose a lot. Back everything up, take the server down and install Fedora 12 or wait for 13. Better still, move to CentOS for the server. Figure out how to backup and re-install MediaWiki. There's got to be a way.

[William Haller]

Set up a fc12 box. Copy the wiki database across. Consult the mediawiki site for migration instructions from the version running on FC5 to FC12 and do them - perhaps by downloading intervening mediawiki releases and doing their upgrades one by one rather than utilizing the RPMs. Once you are back up and running, do something else with the old server.

If you really need to update the one box and can't just move stuff, then yes. You absolutely need to upgrade through each step. There were enough changes over the years that I doubt you'd be successful going straight from 5 to 12. There is no pre upgrade available that will do that, but you really don't need them. I've never used pre upgrade but I set up a local repository so everything was easily available. I just imported the new RPM keys and did a yum update, cursed about packages that didn't quite resolve with the currently downloaded updates, deleted a package here and there till an update would work, and then reinstalled the removed packages. This has been successful from fc1 through fc12, so I know it can be done. It just isn't always as pretty as it could be but it will work.

Remember that there are not many repositories out there with the old stuff anymore, and that several releases had some broken things that got fixed with each first round or two of updates that you won't have ready access to. You might want to search out existing repositories at fedora for each release for updates and set up your yum.conf.d files to explicitly search those servers rather than the non-existent mirror lists. Most people won't remember all the work around actions they had to take to get fc6 running after a fc5 upgrade either, so there won't be as much help as usual on the forum.

Be prepared for the unexpected. Back everything up first. And seriously do take a shot at just moving the mysql database and wiki across and upgrading the wiki. It'll probably take less time in the long run. Then don't let this happen again. Upgrade your server with each release (maybe not to bleeding edge but at stick with the oldest supported version).

[CiaW]

Originally Posted by glennzo

Never a good idea to make such a large jump, i.e 5 to 12, even if you plan on going one version at a time. It's too risky and you are stand to lose a lot. Back everything up, take the server down and install Fedora 12 or wait for 13. Better still, move to CentOS for the server. Figure out how to backup and re-install MediaWiki. There's got to be a way.

+1 for this idea, it was what I was thinking before I read the responses.