CentOS 8 hit its EOL date in December 31st, 2021, a strategic point in the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) environment. Rather than CentOS Linux previously trailing downstream of RHEL, CentOS Stream is an upstream rolling-release build of RHEL, with updates and features introduced in front of them officially applying to RHEL. For system administrators and infra teams who have CentOS 8 in production stacks, this transition calls for a technically-driven migration plan to fall in line with the new CentOS Stream development model and be in line with RHEL ecosystem development.
Migration of CentOS 8 to CentOS Stream involves replacing the system’s YUM/DNF repositories with CentOS Stream channels that are to take over the base and update repositories. The migration ensures that your machine will begin to pull packages directly from sources of CentOS Stream and thereby receive pre-release RHEL functionality along with kernel patches.
The original creator of CentOS Linux (Gregory M. Kurtzer) announced Rocky Linux, which is to be a “community enterprise Operating System designed to be 100% bug-for-bug compatible with Enterprise Linux, now that CentOS has shifted direction”.
Convert CentOS 8 to CentOS Stream Linux
Migrating CentOS 8 to CentOS Stream is a straightforward process, but there are several things to do and consider before committing. The dnf utility provides a simple and convenient way to perform the migration.
Start by initiating an ssh access request to the server.
$ ssh [email protected]
Warning: Permanently added '157.230.228.163' (ECDSA) to the list of known hosts.
Activate the web console with: systemctl enable --now cockpit.socket
Last login: Mon Dec 14 17:41:34 2020 from 41.80.98.251Confirm current server edition.
$ cat /etc/os-release
NAME="CentOS Linux"
VERSION="8"
ID="centos"
ID_LIKE="rhel fedora"
VERSION_ID="8"
PLATFORM_ID="platform:el8"
PRETTY_NAME="CentOS Linux 8"
ANSI_COLOR="0;31"
CPE_NAME="cpe:/o:centos:centos:8"
HOME_URL="https://centos.org/"
BUG_REPORT_URL="https://bugs.centos.org/"
CENTOS_MANTISBT_PROJECT="CentOS-8"
CENTOS_MANTISBT_PROJECT_VERSION="8"Confirm this is CentOS Linux 8 operating system then install stream repository package.
sudo dnf -y install centos-release-streamThen make the stream repositories default for all package management operations.
sudo dnf swap centos-{linux,stream}-reposHit the y key to accept when prompted.
....
Transaction Summary
==================================================================================================================================================================
Install 2 Packages
Remove 1 Package
Total download size: 40 k
Is this ok [y/N]: yFinally update all the packages with the stream available versions.
sudo dnf distro-syncAgree to start package upgrade process.
....
Transaction Summary
==================================================================================================================================================================
Install 14 Packages
Upgrade 111 Packages
Downgrade 13 Packages
Total download size: 298 M
Is this ok [y/N]: yWait for the upgrade to complete then boot to CentOS Stream OS environment.
sudo rebootCheck os release details to validate the switch.
$ cat /etc/os-release
NAME="CentOS Stream"
VERSION="8"
ID="centos"
ID_LIKE="rhel fedora"
VERSION_ID="8"
PLATFORM_ID="platform:el8"
PRETTY_NAME="CentOS Stream 8"
ANSI_COLOR="0;31"
CPE_NAME="cpe:/o:centos:centos:8"
HOME_URL="https://centos.org/"
BUG_REPORT_URL="https://bugzilla.redhat.com/"
REDHAT_SUPPORT_PRODUCT="Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8"
REDHAT_SUPPORT_PRODUCT_VERSION="CentOS Stream"You’re now running on CentOS Stream edition. Stay connected for more fresh content.
