Upgrading RHEL 4.x to Fedora 11

Have remote, CD-ROM-less server with RHEL 4.x (well, SL 4.x) on it; require Fedora 11. Wander over and set up a PXE install for Fedora 11? Or attempt to upgrade from RHEL 4.x to Fedora 11 via yum? :-)

Outline Procedure

First:

  yum clean all

Manually install fedora-release-7-3.noarch.rpm and its dependency fedora-release-notes-7.0.0-1.noarch.rpm (e.g., using wget and rpm, or something like
```
    rpm -Uvh http://archives.fedoraproject.org/pub/archive/fedora/linux/releases/7/Fedora/x86_64/os/Fedora/fedora-release-7-3.noarch.rpm
```
- Manually remove the old RHEL (well, SL) repo files from /etc/yum.repos.d if necessary.
Use wget and/or rpm to upgrade python-related packages, then rpm-related packages, them yum-related packages, and the rpm database-related packages, i.e. db... (not dbus!); and selinux stuff.
Then openssl and openssh.

Rules of Thumb

Before upgrading, emove as much cruft as possible, e.g., all the GNOME/KDE-related stuff, and leave just the base OS.
You will need to be brave and use --nodeps and --force sometimes — and thus likely break all sorts of things; as long as these are not things we are using (network connectivity, basic stuff like ls, bash. . . , we are ok).

Outline of Upgrade of Python and RPM

  rpm -Uvh  glibc-2.6-3.x86_64.rpm glibc-common-2.6-3.x86_64.rpm  --nodeps --force

  rpm -Uvh python-2.5-12.fc7.x86_64.rpm python-libs-2.5-12.fc7.x86_64.rpm  --nodeps

  rpm -Uvh elfutils-0.127-1.fc7.x86_64.rpm elfutils-libelf-0.127-1.fc7.x86_64.rpm elfutils-libs-0.127-1.fc7.x86_64.rpm

  rpm -Uvh rpm-python-4.4.2-46.fc7.x86_64.rpm rpm-libs-4.4.2-46.fc7.x86_64.rpm rpm-4.4.2-46.fc7.x86_64.rpm beecrypt-4.1.2-12.x86_64.rpm popt-1.10.2-46.fc7.x86_64.rpm

But then the new rpm would not work owing to SELinux-related issues. . .

SELinux-Related Problems

  rpm ...
  unknown symbol mathpath_init
      # ...or something similar...

Solution: scp over a newer version of /lib64/libselinux.so.1 (more accurately, whatever this s-link was pointing to) from a newer system, e.g., RHEL 5.x. Thankfully scp was still working! Then s-link to it. Take care, e.g.,

  cd /lib64
  cp libselinux.so.1 libselinux.so.1--orig
  cp /home/simonh/libselinux.so.1 libselinux.so.1--new
  ln -s /lib64/libselinux.so.1--new /lib64/libselinux.so.1 --force

i.e., ensure that at all points you have some sort of /lib64/libselinux.so.1 else ls and almost everything will break!

And yes, I did not have a valid /lib64/libselinux.so.1 at some point! Help! But luckily, ln -s still worked. . .

Eventually, once rpm was working again:

  rpm -Uvh mcstrans-0.2.5-1.fc7.x86_64.rpm 
  rpm -Uvh  libsepol-2.0.3-1.fc7.x86_64.rpm 
  ln -s /lib64/libselinux.so.1--new /lib64/libselinux.so.1 --force
  rpm -Uvh libselinux-2.0.13-1.fc7.x86_64.rpm  --force

yum and _sha256

  yum ...

  no module named _sha256

Solution: scp over an updated libopenssl/libcrypt, then rpm-install the proper one:

  scp newer libopenssl and libcrypt from a RHEL 5.x install
  cd /lib64/
  ln -s libssl.so.0.9.8b libssl.so.4 --force
  ln -s libcrypto.so.0.9.8b libcrypto.so.4 --force

The old-faithful RPM database problems rear their ugly head

warning: python-2.5-12.fc7.x86_64.rpm: Header V3 DSA signature: NOKEY, key ID 4f2a6fd2
rpmdb: Program version 4.3 doesn't match environment version
error: db4 error(-30974) from dbenv->open: DB_VERSION_MISMATCH: Database environment version mismatch
error: cannot open Packages index using db3 -  (-30974)
warning: cannot open Solve database in /usr/lib/rpmdb/x86_64-redhat-linux/SL
error: Failed dependencies:
       libdb-4.5.so()(64bit) is needed by python-2.5-12.fc7.x86_64

Solution:

[root@fluent ~]# rm /var/lib/rpm/__*
rm: remove regular empty file `/var/lib/rpm/__db.000'? y
rm: remove regular file `/var/lib/rpm/__db.001'? y
rm: remove regular file `/var/lib/rpm/__db.002'? y
rm: remove regular file `/var/lib/rpm/__db.003'? y

Then db4, python completion and yum

  rpm -Uvh readline-5.2-4.fc7.x86_64.rpm  --nodeps
  rpm -Uvh db4-4.5.20-5.fc7.x86_64.rpm --nodeps
  rpm -Uvh python-2.5-12.fc7.x86_64.rpm 

  yum
   ...urlgrabber-related error message...

  rpm -e urlgrabber
  rpm -Uvh python-urlgrabber-2.9.9-5.fc7.noarch.rpm --force


  rpm -Uvh pygobject2-2.12.3-3.fc7.x86_64.rpm 
  rpm -Uvh glib2-2.12.11-1.fc7.x86_64.rpm 
  rpm -Uvh pygobject2-2.12.3-3.fc7.x86_64.rpm 
  rpm -Uvh yum-3.2.0-1.fc7.noarch.rpm yum-metadata-parser-1.1.0-2.fc7.x86_64.rpm

Sqlite-related:

yum
Loading "installonlyn" plugin

Could not find any working storages.
Exception exceptions.AttributeError: "'YumRepository' object has no attribute 'sack'" in <bound method YumRepository.__del_
_ of <yum.yumRepo.YumRepository object at 0xbf2850>> ignored

Solution is to ensure sqlite-related RPMs are installed and OK:

  rpm -Uvh sqlite-3.3.13-1.fc7.x86_64.rpm

Other Stuff

UoM::RCS::Talby

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