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centos upgrade

Hi, I have a dedicated server and need to upgrade from Centos 4 to centos 5 in order to get automatic updates for new software. I was told that I need to get a new server in order get the operating system upgrade. I currently have an Intel Xeon 2.66ghz.

Is a new server really necessary? The current one is performing well for me. Why would my hosting company have this policy and is it a widespread policy among dedicated web hosting companies?

thanks for your help!

farzanj

No. You need proxy or Satellite server which for CentOS is SpaceWalk only when you have a huge environment in your server farm.

For a couple of servers you can configure it to access the central repositories

farzanj

If you have a large server farm it makes sense to get the upgrades to only one machine and the to redistribute upgrades from there.

Jan Bacher

Upgrading within revisions just works -- upgrading versions typically requires a new installation.

farzanj

I think the asker is asking about a lot of upgrading and patching that the system administrators have to do on daily basis. Linux works really well with these upgrades and in particular Redhat/CentOS do really well. The only time a reinstall is better -- when you have to upgrade from RHEL4 to RHEL5 but with even that some system admins make it work well. If you are managing 1,000-10,000 servers, simply reinstalling for every upgrade doesn't make sense.

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

Papertrip

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Neo

ASKER

Papertrip, that is exactly what I meant with my question. This policy sounded very awkward, and I wanted to know if others felt the same way.