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Sunday, February 21, 2021

Migrate CentOS 8 Operating System to RHEL

Migrate CentOS Linux to RHEL 8 Operating System

In this article, you will learn how to migrate your CentOS Linux to Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 8 operating system.

 

Table of Contents:

 

Problem Definition:

Due to the demise of CentOS Linux 8, the system administrators are now looking for alternatives to migrate your existing CentOS Linux server machines.

We have already published a list of CentOS Linux 8 alternatives and also wrote an article on migration of CentOS Linux to CentOS Stream operating system.

Now, we are showing the steps to migrate a existing CentOS Linux server to Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) operating system. Because Red Hat is now offering free one year subscription for upto 16 servers. Therefore, you can migrate to RHEL 8 and enable the official yum repositories by registering your Linux server with Red Hat subscription manager.

Migrate CentOS Linux to RHEL 8 Operating System


Update Existing Linux Server:

Use a ssh client and login to your CentOS Linux server as root user.

Check the current Linux Kernel and operating system versions.

# uname -r
4.18.0-240.1.1.el8_3.x86_64

# cat /etc/redhat-release
CentOS Linux release 8.3.2011

We recommend that you should use Convert2RHEL utility for this migration process. Convert2RHEL is simple tool that can convert your existing CentOS Linux or Oracle Linux operating systems to Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 8.

Currently, Convert2RHEL supports migration from CentOS/Oracle Linux 6,7,8 to RHEL 8.

Based on the version of your Linux distro, you can download and install the supported package of Convert2RHEL software. The download URLs are available at Convert2RHEL GitHub page.

Since, we are using CentOS Linux 8 in this article, therefore we are installing the respective Convert2RHEL package by using dnf command.

# dnf install -y https://github.com/oamg/convert2rhel/releases/download/v0.17/convert2rhel-0.17-1.el8.noarch.rpm

01-install-convert2rhel-package

Convert2RHEL is written in Python, therefore it also installs Python programming language support herewith.

Update your CentOS Linux software packages to the latest stable versions by using dnf command.

# dnf update -y

02-update-linux-software-packages

After update, check the Linux kernel and operating system versions again.

# uname -r                       
4.18.0-240.1.1.el8_3.x86_64

# cat /etc/redhat-release        
CentOS Linux release 8.3.2011

Reboot your Linux server with the updated Kernel.

# reboot

 

Migrate to RHEL 8 Operating System:

After reboot, login as root user and start the migration process by using the Convert2RHEL utility. You will need your Red Hat login credentials to register your Linux server after migration to RHEL 8.

# convert2rhel --username centlinux

03-executing-convert2rhel-script

First of all convert2rhel is obtaining a confirmation from user to execute the script.

04-convert2rhel-package-removal-warning

Some software packages will be removed by the script, and it is asking for the confirmation.

05-convert2rhel-choose-redhat-subscription

Choose your preferred Red Hat Subscription from the list.

06-convert2rhel-package-removal-warning

Some more software packages will be removed by the convert2rhel script.

07-convert2rhel-patch-yum-configuration-file

The script is patching the yum configuration file.

08-convert2rhel-finish-centos-8-migration

Finally, convert2rhel script has been completed successfully.

After successful execution of Convert2RHEL utility, you need to restart your Linux server to boot your operating system with the new RHEL 8 Kernel.

# reboot

After reboot, check the Linux kernel and operating system versions.

# uname -r
4.18.0-240.15.1.el8_3.x86_64

# cat /etc/redhat-release
Red Hat Enterprise Linux release 8.3 (Ootpa)

Your CentOS Linux server has been migrated to RHEL 8.

Change the hostname of your Linux server, if required.

# hostnamectl set-hostname rhel-8.centlinux.com

If you faced difficulty in understanding the above article, we recommend that you should buy and read RHCSA Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 (UPDATED): Training and Exam Preparation Guide (EX200), Second Edition by Asghar Ghori.

 

Conclusion:

In this article, you have migrated your CentOS Linux server to Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 8 operating system.

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