[Spacewalk-list] Running Spacewalk on RHEL 5 / CentOS 5

[Cliff Perry]

On 25/03/13 15:41, Pierre Casenove wrote:
> Hello,
> My spacewalk production server is only 2 years old. The upgrade patch
> implies to reintall from scratch and restore the postgresql dump. So I
> would need to buy a new server. I would probably get stuck on version
> 1.9 for a while if it was the last release for el5.
>
> And of course, we need to keep el5 client support!
>
> Pierre
>
>
> 2013/3/25 Lasher, Eric A <eric.lasher at unmc.edu
> <mailto:eric.lasher at unmc.edu>>
>
>     It's pretty critical we still support el5 clients... I'm assuming
>     this is only the server side?
>
>     On Mar 25, 2013, at 10:29 AM, "richard rigby" <r.rigby at leeds.ac.uk
>     <mailto:r.rigby at leeds.ac.uk>> wrote:
>
>      > On 25/03/13 14:57, Cliff Perry wrote:
>      >
>      >> Hi folks,
>      >> today we provide Spacewalk releases on EL5, EL6, and current Fedora
>      >> versions. Due to the increasing differences of EL5 vs. the
>     newest OSes,
>      >> we are seriously considering not releasing Spacewalk on EL5 anymore,
>      >> since it hinders our ability to do some other forward-looking
>     changes we
>      >> would like to do.
>      >>
>      >> If we make the current Spacewalk 1.9 the last release on EL5, will
>      >> Spacewalk users find it hard to migrate to EL6?
>      >>
>      >> Feedback is appreciated and will be taken into consideration for how
>      >> quickly we make this change.
>      >
>      > is this just talking about the server side, rather than clients?
>      >
>      > currently running spacewalk server on el5/32 bit (making use of
>     old hardware), and all works well.
>      >
>      > if 1.9 were to be the last el5 release, it wouldn't be too much
>     of a pain - we would just stick on this version until able to
>     migrate the server to el6/64, which we should be able to do without
>     too much trouble, though we may get a release or two behind before
>     we have time to do the upgrade. again, not really a worry.
>      >
>      > as for client side, we will have some (quite a few) el5 clients
>     for a while yet, so it would be nice if these could continue to be
>     managed by spacewalk.
>      >
>      > hope that's of some use.
>      >
>      > thanks,
>      >
>      > richard
>      >
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So,
yes, we will continue to EL5 clients to Spacewalk. I made a mistake in 
not stating that, even though it was not the topic of my email :)

As for an upgrade path, the general process for switching from EL5 to 
EL6, would be to restore the database onto a EL6 based Spacewalk server 
and the clients will continue to work. I do not know if we document this 
process too well today [which this thread is high lighting].

Overview in general terms, is:
  - Assuming no upgrade of Spacewalk, just moving from EL5 to EL6
  - Backup the files on disk (RPMs), config files, RPM's, database.
  - Install (or re-install system) EL6
  - Install Spacewalk 1.9
  - Restore database files, files on disk (RPMs).
  - Review old/new config files for differences (restore individual 
settings)
  - Run!

Warning/note - this is not something I have personally tested recently 
for Spacewalk, which is why my reply it is lacking specific details, but 
to acknowledge it can be done and give a pointer in the right direction.

You can combine an upgrade of Spacewalk, with switching of OS at the 
same time, but that just adds another layer of changes to track.

I appreciate feedback so far as it will help as we plan ahead.

Regards,
Cliff



-- 
Clifford Perry
Manager, Satellite Engineering
Red Hat, Inc.
http://www.redhat.com/
RHCA / RHCE# 805007680128201