Chapter 6. Upgrading Hosts to Next Major Red Hat Enterprise Linux Release
You can use a job template to upgrade your Red Hat Enterprise Linux hosts to the next major release. Below upgrade paths are possible:
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9
Prerequisites
Ensure that your Red Hat Enterprise Linux hosts meet the requirements for the upgrade.
- For Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 upgrade, see Planning an upgrade in Upgrading from RHEL 7 to RHEL 8.
- For Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 upgrade, see Planning an upgrade to RHEL 9 in Upgrading from RHEL 8 to RHEL 9.
Prepare your Red Hat Enterprise Linux hosts for the upgrade.
- For Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 upgrade, see Preparing a RHEL 7 system for the upgrade in Upgrading from RHEL 7 to RHEL 8.
- For Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 upgrade, see Preparing a RHEL 8 system for the upgrade in Upgrading from RHEL 8 to RHEL 9.
- Enable remote execution feature on Satellite. For more information, see Chapter 12, Configuring and Setting Up Remote Jobs.
- Distribute Satellite SSH keys to the hosts that you want to upgrade. For more information, see Section 12.14, “Distributing SSH Keys for Remote Execution”.
Procedure
On Satellite, enable the Leapp plugin:
# satellite-installer --enable-foreman-plugin-leapp
If you are using a custom job template for the Leapp pre-upgrade check, configure the leapp_preupgrade remote execution feature to point to your template:
- In the Satellite web UI, navigate to Administer > Remote Execution Features.
- Click leapp_preupgrade.
- In the Job Template dropdown menu, select your template.
- Click Submit.
- In the Satellite web UI, navigate to Hosts > All Hosts.
- Select the hosts that you want to upgrade to the next major Red Hat Enterprise Linux version.
- In the upper right of the Hosts window, from the Select Action list, select Preupgrade check with Leapp.
- Enter the required information and start the pre-upgrade check.
When the check is finished, click the Leapp preupgrade report tab to see if Leapp has found any issues on your hosts. Issues that have the Inhibitor flag are considered crucial and are likely to break the upgrade procedure. Issues that have the Has Remediation flag contain remediation that can help you fix the issue.
Click an issue that is flagged as Has Remediation to expand it.
- If the issue contains a remediation Command, you can fix it directly from Satellite using remote execution. Select the issue.
- If the issue contains only a remediation Hint, use the hint to fix the issue on the host manually.
Repeat this step for other issues.
- After you selected any issues with remediation commands, click Fix Selected and submit the job.
- After the issues are fixed, click Rerun, and then click Submit to run the pre-upgrade check again to verify that the hosts you are upgrading do not have any issues and are ready to be upgraded.
- If the pre-upgrade check verifies that the hosts do not have any issues, click Run Upgrade and click Submit to start the upgrade.
- Optional: You can also upgrade by selecting the Schedule a Job dropdown in the host details page.
