Migration from Redhat to Mandrake

[Madhava]

I have installed and running Redhat Linux 6.2 with 25 users, and files owned by those users. I also have enabled SAMBA, DNS etc services.

What is the method to migrate to Mandrake Linux without re-creating the users and re-installing the services and re-configure those services ? How do i back up ? what do i back up ? How do i restore ?

 

[dup]

To backup your system :
dd if=/dev/hda of=/dev/hdb, be carrefull it write all contents of first disk on the second, so all data of /dev/hdb wiil be erased.
You can try mondo a software that create iso image of your system and do bootable cd.

 

[Madhava]

Thanks for that info. But i am not really looking for disk dump. I need to retain all user's database, their pass words, file permissions, user files, installed services like SAMBA, DNS, SQUID etc but migrate my kernel to latest available from Mandrake and also install latest X from Mandrake. What is the best way to do this ?

 

[ifincham]

Hi,















Well, according to mandrake's own website they are 99% binary compatible with redhat -->

http://www.linux-mandrake.com/en/fapps.php3

. So, maybe, you could try to do an 'expert' 'update' install -->

http://www.linux-mandrake.com/en/doc/80/en/user.html/install-class.html

.
However, I have no knowledge of whether this would work or not or what it might do to your system so that would be at your own risk. If you have another machine you can test it out by installing Redhat 6.2 and then trying to 'upgrade' that system to Mandrake in the manner just described. If you can't test it I wouldn't risk it, however.











In general, the most important thing to back-up is the entire /etc directory as this contains all the configuration files, password files, etc.











The other approach would be to update the rpms in groups by using the 'rpm' command. For example, you could copy all the rpms beginning with X to a temporary harddisk directory and then do a 'rpm -Fvh *.rpm' from that directory. Inevitably you'll get dependency errors from missing files but just copy these into the same directory and try again. Its long winded but may be safest. You may find that the first rpm you need to update is rpm itself.

Some rpm examples :




rpm -Fvh rpmname.rpm (freshen packages - update only if prior version installed)


rpm -Uvh rpmname.rpm (upgrade packages if prior version installed - if not installed then install now)


rpm -ivh rpmname.rpm (install package only if no prior version installed)


rpm -Fvh --test X*.rpm (test for dependencies if freshened all packages beginning with X)







What you certainly should not do is install the kernel rpm itself with the 'rpm' command. Although its a redhat doc, this will give you a guide to how to upgrade the kernel (i.e. without compiling it yourself) -->

http://www.redhat.com/support/resources/howto/kernel-upgrade/index.html

Whatever you do be cautious.. you don't want a unbootable machine and, if at all possible, you should make a full system backup first.











Hope this helps