TRIUMF Grid System Management Documentation

TRIUMF Grid System Upgrades

For major upgrades - for example from SL3 to SL4 - the preferred method of upgrading is to wipe and reinstall.  For minor upgrades - for example from SL 303 to SL 304 - the preferred method is to do a 'yum upgrade'  This section details how to do a minor upgrade.

Note that minor upgrades are sometimes so minor that you don't even need to reboot. The important aspect of upgrading is to get your YUM environment right, so that YUM uses the correct errata tree when you patch the upgraded node.
  • First, fully patch the node if it is not already up-to-date.
  • Do a backup of the node.
  • Upgrade the yum-conf package:
    # rpm -Fvh /opt/mirror/rpms/304/i386/SL/RPMS/yum-conf-304-2.SL.noarch.rpm
  • Modify the yum.conf file so that it uses the local mirror, and references the correct SL distribution.  Comment out any LCG trees that you do not want referenced during the upgrade, especially if the installed LCG software is not up to date.  Here is an example.
  • Purge the cached yum info for all repositories that are to be upgraded:
    # cd /var/cache/yum/
    # rm -rf sl303errata  sl303server
  • To synchronize the new headers, do:  # yum check-update
  • If there were no warnings from the check-update option, proceed with the upgrade (do not do 'update') and watch the output for any errors:
    # yum upgrade
  • Some pesky processes may be chkconfig-ed back on - remove them:
    # chkconfig --del kudzu
    # chkconfig --del yum 
  • If a new kernel was installed during either the initial patching or during the upgrade then reboot the node and look for any anomolies.