Installation and Availability

6 Installation and Availability

WARNING:

Oracle Linux 7 is now in Extended Support. See Oracle Linux Extended Support and Oracle Open Source Support Policies for more information.

Migrate applications and data to Oracle Linux 8 or Oracle Linux 9 as soon as possible.

You can download the full Oracle Linux 7.8 installation media image from the Oracle Software Delivery Cloud at https://edelivery.oracle.com/. A smaller boot ISO is also available to perform a network based installation.

For convenience, the three most recent Oracle Linux installation media images, for each release, are also available from the Oracle Linux yum server at https://yum.oracle.com/oracle-linux-isos.html.

You can also install a full Oracle Linux 7.8 media image for the x86_64 platform on a compute instance on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. To access the image, you must first obtain an Oracle Cloud Infrastructure account. For more information, visit https://www.oracle.com/index.html .

In addition, the latest Oracle Linux 7.8 packages are available on the Unbreakable Linux Network (ULN) and the Oracle Linux yum server.

To obtain the latest Oracle Linux 7.8 packages from ULN and install additional software for Oracle Linux 7.8, subscribe to the different channels on ULN, log in to https://linux.oracle.com and then view the Channels option.
To install additional software for Oracle Linux 7.8 from the Oracle Linux yum server, enable the required repositories within your yum configuration. To view the Oracle Linux yum repositories that are available for Oracle Linux 7.8, visit https://yum.oracle.com/.

Note:

The Oracle Linux yum server does not provide equivalent repositories for some of the channels that are available on ULN. These channels provide non-open source packages.

Oracle also makes the Oracle Linux 7.8 release available for 64-bit Arm (aarch64) platforms. See Release-Specific Information for Oracle Linux 7.8 (aarch64) for more information.

For developers who are making use of the Raspberry Pi hardware platform, Oracle provides an unsupported developer release image that includes the necessary firmware to boot this platform. You can download the image from the Oracle Technology Network. For more information about making use of the Raspberry Pi hardware platform, see Install Oracle Linux on a Raspberry Pi.

If you are installing an update on a system for which you have previously installed the Oracle-supported OFED packages, see Upgrading a system with an existing UEK R4 installation to continue to use UEK R4 for instructions on how to update these packages during an upgrade.

UEK R5U3 is the default boot kernel for fresh installations of Oracle Linux 7.8.

For systems that are running UEK R3 or UEK R4 and are subscribed to the ol7_x86_64_UEKR3 or ol7_x86_64_UEKR4 channel on ULN, or the ol7_x86_64_UEKR3 or ol7_x86_64_UEKR4 repository on the Oracle Linux yum server, you can upgrade to the latest UEK release as follows:

Upgrade all of the packages on the system, including the kernel packages.
```
sudo yum update
```
By default, the boot manager automatically enables the most recent kernel version so you do not need to change your GRUB configuration.
Reboot the system.
```
sudo systemctl reboot
```

Important:

Oracle Linux 7.8 updates many major subsystems. To ensure that your updated systems function correctly, reboot them after updating.

Upgrading from Oracle Linux 6

It is possible to upgrade an Oracle Linux 6 system to Oracle Linux 7.8 under the following conditions:

The system meets the minimum installation requirements for Oracle Linux 7, as described in System Requirements and Limitations.
The Oracle Linux 6 system has been completely updated from the ol6_x86_64_latest channel or ol6_latest repository.
UEK R3 or UEK R4 is installed on the system that is to be upgraded and is the default boot kernel.
No Oracle product stack is present on the system.

Note that the upgrade process installs on the system the UEK R5 release that is provided with Oracle Linux 7.8.

Note that upgrading from UEK R2 is not supported.

Note:

Upgrades are supported only for systems that are installed with the Minimal Install base environment. If additional packages are installed from an alternative repository or channel, upgrade might fail or the resulting upgrade might not function as expected.

For general instructions on performing an upgrade, see Oracle Linux 7: Installation Guide.

The following steps are specific to the update for this release:

Ensure that your system is completely up to date by using the yum update command to update to the latest Oracle Linux 6 release.

Note that the system must be subscribed to the ol6_x86_64_latest and ol6_x86_64_addons channels or ol6_latest and ol6_addons repositories prior to updating the system.
Install the latest versions of the required upgrade packages:
```
sudo yum install openscap redhat-upgrade-tool preupgrade-assistant \
  preupgrade-assistant-el6toel7 preupgrade-assistant-el6toel7-data-0 \
  preupgrade-assistant-tools preupgrade-assistant-ui
```
Obtain the latest versions of these packages from ULN (in the ol6_x86_64_addons channel), or from the Oracle Linux yum server (in the ol6_addons repository).
If the system is registered with ULN, delete the system from ULN and disable yum plugins.
Run the preupg command to perform an upgrade assessment:
```
sudo preupg
```
Examine the results in the /root/preupgrade/result.html file to ensure that there are no failed items or any items that require attention.
Perform the upgrade by running the redhat-upgrade-tool-cli command:
```
sudo redhat-upgrade-tool-cli --network=7.8 --instrepo=OL7_repo_url \
--debuglog=/tmp/upgrade.log --cleanup-post
```
In the previous command, OL7_repo_url is the URL of the repository in which the Oracle Linux 7.8 ISO is hosted.
Reboot the system to start the upgrade process.

Note:

When upgrading from Oracle Linux 6 to Oracle Linux 7.8, the previous UEK R4 version is removed from the system during the upgrade and the system is updated to use the UEK R5 release that is provided on the installation media image as the default boot kernel.

Oracle-Supported RDMA Packages

Oracle Linux 7.8 provides UEK R5 as the default kernel. The Oracle-supported RDMA packages that are shipped with UEK R5 replace the previous OFED packages and use an updated package and channel-naming scheme. Oracle recommends using UEK R5 with Oracle Linux 7.8.

If you intend to install RDMA packages, see the release notes for the UEK R5 release that you are running in the Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel documentation library.

Upgrading a system with an existing UEK R5 installation

If you are upgrading your system from a release that is prior to Oracle Linux 7.8, and you are already using UEK R5, with the Oracle-supported RDMA packages, these packages are updated automatically during the upgrade process.

If your system is registered with ULN, ensure that it is subscribed to the ol7_x86_64_UEKR5_RDMA, ol7_x86_64_UEKR5, and ol7_x86_64_latest channels before the upgrade.

If your system uses the Oracle Linux yum server, ensure that the ol7_UEKR5_RDMA, ol7_UEKR5, and ol7_latest repositories are enabled before upgrading.

Upgrading a system with an existing UEK R4 installation to use UEK R5

If you are upgrading your system from a release that is prior to Oracle Linux 7.8, and you are using UEK R4 with the Oracle-supported OFED packages, it is recommended that you upgrade to UEK R5 and switch to the corresponding Oracle-supported UEK R5 RDMA packages before upgrading your system.

Note that if the system is newly registered on ULN, the ol7_x86_64_UEKR5 and ol7_x86_64_latest channels are subscribed to by default. However, you will need to explicitly subscribe to the ol7_x86_64_UEKR5_RDMA channel.

Starting with Oracle Linux 7.6, if your system uses the Oracle Linux yum server, the ol7_UEKR5, and ol7_latest repositories are enabled by default. However, ensure that the ol7_UEKR5_RDMA repository is enabled before upgrading.

Upgrading requires that you remove existing OFED packages prior to installing the compatible packages for UEK R5.

For instructions, see the release notes for the UEK R5 release that you are running in the Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel documentation library.

Upgrading a system with an existing UEK R4 installation to continue to use UEK R4

If you are upgrading your system from a release prior to Oracle Linux 7.8, and you are using UEK R4 with the Oracle-supported OFED packages, and you intend to continue to use UEK R4, you must ensure that your system is subscribed to the correct channels or that the correct yum repositories are enabled before upgrading.

If you are using ULN, check that your system is registered before upgrading and then subscribe the system to the ol7_x86_64_UEKR4_OFED and ol7_x86_64_UEKR4 channels.

Attention:

By default, the ol7_x86_64_UEKR5 and ol7_x86_64_latest channels are enabled when you register an Oracle Linux 7.8 system with ULN. Note that if the ol7_x86_64_UEKR5 channel is enabled, you must disable it to continue if you plan to continue to use UEK R4 with the Oracle-supported OFED packages.

If you are using the Oracle Linux yum server, check that the ol7_UEKR4 and ol7_UEKR4_OFED repositories are enabled and make sure that the ol7_UEKR5 and ol7_UEKR5_RDMA repositories are disabled.

Use the yum update command to upgrade to Oracle Linux 7.8 with the UEK R4 compatible OFED packages.

If you do not have any of the OFED packages installed, you can install the packages, per the installation instructions in the Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel: Release Notes for Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel Release 4 Update 7 (4.1.12-124).