Fedora 3, 4 and 6 - Remote Upgrade Advice?

[Dennis Gilmore]

On Thursday 02 April 2009 09:20:32 am Mark Haney wrote:
> Gabriel - IP Guys wrote:
> > Dear All,
> >
> > Thank you for reading my message. I have to upgrade three linux boxes,
> > that are FC3,4 and 6. Now, the problem that I have is that these
> > machines have other services running on them, and I do not want to break
> > anything.
> >
> > All three servers are in two collocation facilities, and I believe that
> > the safest method, is to move all services off from the machines, and
> > also remove all software to make the machines as stock as possible. I
> > then plan to run yum upgrade a few times until I'm up to date with the
> > repo, and then follow that with a yum upgrade - rinse, and repeat until
> > I'm at FC8 - I'll wait until 11 is in beta before I move forward to FC9.
> > I would appreciate any help or comments that you have.
>
> I'm not sure I would do 'yum upgrade'.  But, with the systems being
> remote I don't know what other options there are on systems that old.
> I've got several systems I've upgraded (via media) from FC2 up to F9
> without trouble.

you can setup grub with the initrd and kernel image from the installer.  you 
will need to pass all the arguments that you need on the boot line to get to 
the point that you can connect via vnc.  including password since you are 
going over the internet.  then you could do an install using install media.  I 
have done this in the past. you only get one shot at the install. especially 
if you do a clean install. 

Dennis