Upgrade Oracle Linux from 5 to 6

[danilo_dommrich]

Dear community,

How do I upgrade an Oracle Linux Server that has an SAP System running on it? Oracle and likewise Redhat simply state that they don't support upgrades between major versions. Instead they simply ask to do a fresh install 😮 Has anyone already done an OS (Linux) upgrade with a machine running a central SAP installation (database + instance) on it?

Regards,

Danilo

[former_member189725 · Accepted solution]

If RedHat and Oracle does not , in that case you can do a system copy using backup-restore or SAPINST . Ensure that your in your target system you use the latest available kernel and check PAM for RedHat 6 supported kernel.

Just for a test , you can upgrade the OS . After that , do a relink of oracle binaries/libraries and update the SAP kernel. You will not get any support for this action from the vendors Oracle and RedHat, but always try it out.

Regards

Ratnajit

[danilo_dommrich · Accepted solution]

Hi Ratnajit,

Thanks for your swfit reply. Your proposal seems to be a clean but painful one.

[danilo_dommrich]

Just to recap for those who might be interested - I did the "upgrade" by means of the standard copy procedure via SAPInst...

1. Database export
2. Fresh OS installation
3. OS preparation for SAP
4. Database import

Was working like a charm

Cheers,

Danilo

[Former Member]

Our sysadmins do a fresh install of the OS and reattach of the FS containing the SAP and database filesystem. This way there is only a few manual steps like creating the OS users and editing a few files ein /etc.

Alternatively you can use sapinst -> Host preparations or do a full system copy.

As already mentioned, the Oracle software should either be reinstalled or relinked on the new OS.

Cheers Michael

[danilo_dommrich]

Hi Michael,

Thank you for your reply. The reattachment of the FS is exactly what I had in mind for the case the missing upgrade capability holds true. Nevertheless I'm still puzzled that an OS that is positioned as enterprise ready cannot be upgrade by normal means.

[Former Member]

You are right, but the reality is that very often OS upgrades mean fresh installs. Even the big unixes are very often new installs. We operate a lot of HP-UX boxes and have always done new installs with new versions.

On windows again, often the OS is newly installed. So in my opinion this is not a Linux issue but a general one.

The advantage on the other hand is, that you get rid of old stuff like old java versions, libraries and such and you have a clean system again.

Important is that the migrations are done the same way through your landscape (DEV, QAS, PRD) to test and optimize the procedure.

Cheers Michael

[Former Member]

Hi Danilo,

I understand your concerns, but as m ho mentioned a fresh install has some advantages.

Besides that, homogeneous system copy is not a so much bigger task than an os upgrade, and in case of failure you can switch back to the original host (which is another advantage of fresh install ).

Just keep in mind to check

- clients

- interfaces

- printers

- other local os stuff (scripts, ..)

But if you have proper system documentation (I hope so), then it should be not so complicated.

Regards,

Peter