Step # 1: Make A Backup
It cannot be stressed enough how important it is to make a backup of your system before you do this. Use the following tools to backup data to other server or USB hard disk:
- Use mysqldump for MySQL databases
- Use pg_dump for PostgreSQL databases
- Use tar and rsync tool for LAMP
Step # 2: Update All Packages
Type the following command to get a list of packages that are going to be updated, enter:
# yum list updates
To upgrade your box, enter:
# yum update
Fig.01: CentOS Upgrade In Progress Over The SSH Session
Reboot the server:
# reboot
Verify everything is working:
# uname -a
# netstat -tulpn
# tail -f /var/log/messages
# tail -f /path/to/log/file
# cat /etc/redhat-release
Sample outputs:
CentOS release 5.5 (Final)
You can use the the lsb_release command as follows:
# lsb_release -a
Sample outputs:
LSB Version: :core-3.1-amd64:core-3.1-ia32:core-3.1-noarch:graphics-3.1-amd64:graphics-3.1-ia32:graphics-3.1-noarch
Distributor ID: CentOS
Description: CentOS release 5.5 (Final)
Release: 5.5
Codename: Final
To view log of all updated package, enter:
tail -f /var/log/yum.log
less /var/log/yum.log
grep -i httpd /var/log/yum.log
