C.5. Prepare HTTP server
It is best if the web server runs the version of Red Hat
Linux as is being upgraded to. If it runs an earlier version, then
do not rebuild the operating system on this machine and install
anaconda-runtime from the later
operating system.
Copy the Linux distribution to a local web server using a
mirroring utility like wget. Alternatively the
files can be copied from the distribution CDs to
the web server.
It's best to use a mirror site in place of Red Hat's FTP site
used in the example above.
It is very important not to gain files along the way. Delete
any files generated by FTP servers, web servers
and CD-ROMs.
We now need to add the latest updates to the distributed
software. This is done to avoid the machine being compromised
immediately following the upgrade.
Adding the updates is essential for Red Hat
Linux 7.1, see Section A.2.
Collect together the updates RPMs from
ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/updates/7.1/en/os/
in the subdirectories i386,
i486, i586 i686, images and noarch.
Merge these updates into the copy of the distribution. For
each updated RPM file, remove the original
RPM file then replace it with the updated
RPM file. For example:
Merge the RPMs from the updates subdirectories i386, i686 and noarch into /var/www/html/redhat/linux/7.1/en/os/i386/RedHat/RPMS.
Merge the files from the directory /var/www/html/redhat/updates/7.1/en/os/images
into the directory /var/www/html/redhat/linux/7.1/en/os/i386/images.
The file
/var/www/html/redhat/linux/7.1/en/os/i386/RedHat/base/hdlist
and hdlist2 contain the list of the
RPMs to install. This needs to be modified to
contain the names of the updated RPMs.
Install the anaconda-runtime
RPM on the HTTP server. This
RPM should be the same version as the Red Hat
Linux being upgraded to.
Now create a new hdlist with the
commands:
The distribution plus the updates can now be used for a
network install. They cannot be used for a CD
install, but that doesn't concern us.
As the distribution plus the updates is different from the
original distribution, we should not use the version number of the
original distribution. Appending the date to which the updates
have been applied seems best.