Migration from i386 to X86_64?

[rothmail]

I have a server running CentOS 5.5 on an i386 box. I want to move all the files and all the programs on this to CentOS x86_64 on a new box.

What is a good methodology to ensure that all the programs installed and their related configuration files from the i386 box can be migrated to the new x86_64 box?

My first step, would be to back everything up, of course. Then install CentOS x86_64 on the new box. I've thought of doing a yum list >i386.yum.list which would catch the programs, but I'm concerned about simply copying over the old configuration files (i.e. /etc ) that they would overwrite files they need to either be left alone or updated for the x86_64 OS. I don't believe on this system all programs installed are 100% in the yum list. (Something I'd like to address in the new box so they are?)

I'd appreciate what people have done to do this successfully, so that everything has been covered and taken into consideration. Perhaps there is an application that helps in doing this? Thanks in advance!

[pschaff]

That would be [code]yum list installed > i386.yum.list[/code]or you will also get all available packages in the list. I'd use the following to get just the names of the packages without other info that could mess up using the data with commands such as yum on the new system[code]rpm -qa --qf "%{NAME}\n" | sort | uniq >~/RPMS_by_Name_only[/code]

You could then copy the list over to the new system and make sure all old [b][i]packages[/i][/b] are installed (assuming the repo configs are set up properly) with[code]yum install $(cat ~/RPMS_by_Name_only)[/code]I don't know what to say about unpackaged software except to post if you encounter specific difficulties finding packages for the x86_64 system.

As far at config files in /etc - I'd just save the old directory structure, copy it over to, say /root/etc, and do diffs with new config files to see the differences. Copying the whole /etc over the new system is definitely not advisable.