[WBEL-users] Upgrading from Whitebox to RHEL

[Mike B.]

At 4/27/2007 01:54 PM, Scott Silva wrote:

>Most configuration files are in the /etc directory.  If you install something
>that stores its config files somewhere else, make a symlink into /etc for it
>so you can just tar the /etc directory occasionally.

That's the sort of idea that experienced folks know, but us newbies 
don't always think of...even if we know about symlinks.  Thanks!

A lot of stuff seems to keep config and other customized files in 
/var (DNS, WWW, etc.).  Is there any other location that's common for 
storing such things?

>  If you put your /home
>directory on a separate filesystem, it can be left untouched during the new OS
>install.

That concept carried over from my decades of VAX/VMS and OpenVMS 
experience...so that's how I set up my server way back when.

>I have done some in place upgrades, but I will usually make a list of all the
>installed rpms with rpm -qa |sort >rpmlist.txt before and after the upgrade,
>and compare the list with a log from a fresh install in a vmware vm. That way
>I can look for orphaned rpms.

What about things that got installed without RPMs?  Things built 
locally, from source that wasn't RPM'd or whatever?  Is there a 
simple way to find it all, or do you just have to be organized from 
day one and keep a database (even if it's just a flat text file)?

I think part of my problem is that when I first set up my RH 5.2 
system I was brand new to linux and had almost zero unix 
experience.  I was so overwhelmed just getting things to work at all 
that I had no spare cycles left over for worrying about future 
maintenance or upgrades.  RH made upgrading easy...just make a backup 
for safety (copy to another HD and upgrade the copy) and do the 
upgrade.  That's how I got along up to 7.2 where I am now.  About the 
time I was going to upgrade again RH changed direction and I've been 
frozen in time ever since except for necessary individual upgrades, 
like Sendmail.  It's time to start over, but I don't want to lose too 
much of what I had set up already...though if that happens, so be it, 
but I'd prefer to do better on the *next* big change at least.

Thanks for the ideas!

-- Mike B.