Moving to CentOS 5 (PHP5/MySQL5) from CentOS 4.4

**Justec** · 04-12-2007, 09:37 AM

So CentOS 5 is going to be out soon. It comes stock with PHP & MySQL 5 and apache 2.2. This is a move that I will want to make, but just wanted to get some opinions on an upgrade path.

I currently have a ded box with CentOS 4.4

First thought was to get a VPS with CentOS 5 and move over sites and just make sure they work okay. Then do an upgrade on my current server to bring it to 5.0 status.

Reading the CentOS5 page (http://www.centos.org/docs/5/html/In...grade-x86.html) they do not recommend upgrading. So then I was thinking it might be worth it to just buy a new dedicated box and then move sites over one by one, test them to make sure they work with PHP5/MySQL5, and then change the DNS to make them the live/production site. Then discontinue the old box when that process is complete. This is how I did the move from my old host to Steadfast over a year ago. This would be a more expensive way of handling it, but cleaner.

Thoughts, suggestions?

Thanks,

**Henrik** · 04-12-2007, 01:40 PM

CentOS 5 is apparently out, looking at http://mirror.centos.org/centos/5/isos/i386/ where it is listed. How far are Steadfast from offering CentOS 5 on the dedicated boxes?

I'll personally download it soon and install it on an office computer to see how it runs there

**Justec** · 04-12-2007, 03:09 PM

Earlier when I checked out http://www.centos.org/ it said it was beta, but just checked again now and it no longer says beta, so i guess you are correct.

Let the fun begin

Originally Posted by centOS Website

Upgrade Options and process recommendations :

The best and most recommended way to get your existing CentOS-3/CentOS-4
machine running CentOS-5 is to update the machine via the installer.
This involves booting the machine with the install media, and running a
normal installation path. You will be given an option to upgrade the
machine if an older CentOS install is found on the installable
harddrive. You will still need to check for rpm orphans once the machine
has booted into CentOS-5. Packages from non-CentOS repositories might
need special attention.

Will this be an option SF will offer? They really dont seem to recommend doing an online install via yum upgrade.

Originally Posted by centOS Website

Online Upgrade from CentOS-4/Final

The best way to move from CentOS-4 to CentOS-5 is via an installer
upgrade. However if you must do it online, here are some tips to help:
- Remove as many packages as you can, strip it right back to the
original OS if possible
- Backup everything
- Disable all repositories, except the centos-5 OS and Updates repos
- init 3
- shutdown as many services as possible
- download and install the centos-release-5.x rpm, which will update
your yum configs
- run a yum upgade ( not update )

**Kevin** · 04-12-2007, 04:53 PM

Our mirror (mirror.steadfast.net) is live with CentOS 5 as well. I would not recommend upgrading if you have a control panel, and even otherwise with great caution. I don't think we are going to be supporting the upgrade path. We have no immediate plans to offer VPS servers with CentOS 5, though we will certainly be looking into it.

If you want to start with a new dedicated server running CentOS 5, we can begin offering them immediately. I've just added the OS to the order form. However, be aware that there are currently no control panels that offer support for this OS release.

**Henrik** · 04-12-2007, 05:09 PM

Chop Chop, you're fast Kevin!

**Justec** · 04-12-2007, 06:21 PM

Originally Posted by Kevin

If you want to start with a new dedicated server running CentOS 5, we can begin offering them immediately. I've just added the OS to the order form. However, be aware that there are currently no control panels that offer support for this OS release.

Yeah, Im going to wait till Iworx officially supports which I dont think should be too long. I also think I have decided that when I move to CentOS 5 I will just have to get a 2nd steadfast server and move the stuff over.

**adb22791** · 04-12-2007, 10:07 PM

Originally Posted by Justec

Yeah, Im going to wait till Iworx officially supports which I dont think should be too long.

You might be surprised. Many people still run CentOS 3, and only in the past year or so has CentOS 4 really become popular (as of 4.2 I believe most control panels supported it). It seems like where 5 really shines is with the new RPM updates (Apache 2, PHP 5, MySQL 5, Postgres 8, etc), and the newer Kernel (2.9.18 vs. 2.9.6).

Alex

**Kevin** · 04-13-2007, 02:45 AM

2.6.18 and 2.6.9 :-P

I am glad to see the rebasing on the 2.6.18 kernel. Many things have changed since 2.6.9. Hardware support is always backported, so that's basically irrelevant, but there are a lot of new features, like virtualization (via Xen) and better internals that make the new kernel a nice change.

I'm also glad to see they're no longer shipping separate standard, SMP and "hugemem" kernels. The features are now rolled into a single kernel which just supports them all.