Chapter 4. General Updates

An in-place upgrade offers a way of upgrading a system to a new major release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux by replacing the existing operating system. To perform an in-place upgrade, use the Preupgrade Assistant, a utility that checks the system for upgrade issues before running the actual upgrade, and that also provides additional scripts for the Red Hat Upgrade Tool. When you have solved all the problems reported by the Preupgrade Assistant, use the Red Hat Upgrade Tool to upgrade the system.

For details regarding procedures and supported scenarios, see https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/7/html/Migration_Planning_Guide/chap-Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux-Migration_Planning_Guide-Upgrading.html and https://access.redhat.com/solutions/637583.

Note that the Preupgrade Assistant and the Red Hat Upgrade Tool are available in the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 Extras channel, see https://access.redhat.com/support/policy/updates/extras. (BZ#1432080)

As of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.4, the cloud-init package and its dependencies have been moved from the Red Hat Common channel to the Base channel. Cloud-init is a tool that handles early initialization of a system using metadata provided by the environment. It is typically used to configure servers booting in a cloud environment, such as OpenStack or Amazon Web Services. Note that the cloud-init package has not been updated since the latest version provided through the Red Hat Common channel. (BZ#1427280)