Table of Contents

Upgrading CentOS 32bit 4.x to 32bit 5.x

We have found the following guide very useful in this process. This works for both dedicated servers as well as VPS nodes:

cPanel Servers

If your server has cPanel installed you first need to remove filesystem from the exclude line in /etc/yum.conf. If you don't the yum upgrade procedures below will fail.

Setting file attributes

chattr -Ria /bin
chattr -Ria /etc
chattr -Ria /etc
chattr -Ria /include
chattr -Ria /lib
chattr -Ria /sbin
chattr -Ria /usr/bin
chattr -Ria /usr/include
chattr -Ria /usr/lib
chattr -Ria /usr/libexec
chattr -Ria /usr/local/bin
chattr -Ria /usr/local/include
chattr -Ria /usr/local/lib
chattr -Ria /usr/local/sbin
chattr -Ria /usr/sbin
chattr -Ria /usr/share
chattr -Ria /var/lib
chattr -Ria /var/lock
chattr -Ria /var/log
chattr -Ria /var/run
chattr -Ria /var/spool/repackage

Ensure CentOS 4.x is up-to-date

rpm --rebuilddb
yum clean all
yum update
rm -f /var/lib/rpm/__db.00*
rpm --rebuilddb

Remove and Install Packages

rpm -e lftp syslinux mkbootdisk
rpm -Uvh http://vault.centos.org/5.0/os/i386/CentOS/centos-release-5-0.0.el5.centos.2.i386.rpm http://vault.centos.org/5.0/os/i386/CentOS/centos-release-notes-5.0.0-2.i386.rpm
mv /etc/yum.repos.d/CentOS-Base.repo.rpmnew /etc/yum.repos.d/CentOS-Base.repo

Install CentOS5 Kernel

rpm -ivh --nodeps http://vault.centos.org/5.0/os/i386/CentOS/kernel-2.6.18-8.el5.i686.rpm http://vault.centos.org/5.0/os/i386/CentOS/kernel-devel-2.6.18-8.el5.i686.rpm

Remove Old Kernels

rpm -e $(rpm -qa | grep kernel | grep -v 2.6.18 | tr '\n' ' ') --nodeps

Remaining Packages Upgrade

rpm -e --justdb python-elementtree --nodeps
yum clean all
yum upgrade

Fix RPM System

rm -f /var/lib/rpm/__db.00*
rpm --rebuilddb
rpm -Uvh --force http://vault.centos.org/5.0/os/i386/CentOS/python-elementtree-1.2.6-5.i386.rpm http://vault.centos.org/5.0/os/i386/CentOS/python-sqlite-1.1.7-1.2.1.i386.rpm
yum clean all

One Last Upgrade

yum upgrade

cPanel Servers Only

The filesystem and perl excludes have to be removed from the /etc/yum.conf otherwise you will see dependency issues.

Once the upgrade has completed you will need to do the following so that the cPanel/WHM software picks up the version change. 

rm -f /var/cpanel/sysinfo.config
/scripts/gensysinfo
/scripts/upcp --force
/scripts/mysqlup --force
/scripts/easyapache --build

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