In-place upgrades over multiple RHEL major versions by using Leapp

You cannot perform a direct in-place upgrade over multiple major versions of RHEL systems, for example, from RHEL 7 to RHEL 10, because of technical compatibility issues. You can only upgrade the system to the consecutive major version of RHEL. For example, if you want to upgrade from RHEL 7 to RHEL 10, you must perform the individual in-place upgrades in the following order:

1. Upgrade RHEL 7 to RHEL 8
2. Upgrade RHEL 8 to RHEL 9
3. Upgrade RHEL 9 to RHEL 10

Perform each particular in-place upgrade following the official RHEL upgrade documentation:

• Upgrading from RHEL 7 to RHEL 8
• Upgrading from RHEL 8 to RHEL 9
• Upgrading from RHEL 9 to RHEL 10

General suggestions and reminders when planning multiple consecutive in-place upgrades

Planning and performing several consecutive in-place upgrades over multiple RHEL major versions introduces additional challenges.

Make sure to perform the following steps when planning consecutive in-place upgrades:

• Check which upgrade paths are supported and planned between the two consecutive RHEL major versions. For more information, see Supported in-place upgrade paths for Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

• If any of your systems require specific certifications, make sure that all releases of RHEL that you are performing consecutive upgrades over have the required certification.

• Make sure that your hardware is supported for each RHEL system.

• Make sure that your system's architecture is supported for all desired in-place upgrades.

• Make sure that your system meets minimum hardware requirements.

• Read the overview of changes between major versions of RHEL:

  • Considerations in adopting RHEL 8

  • Considerations in adopting RHEL 9

  • Considerations in adopting RHEL 10

• Check the documented known issues for each in-place upgrade to be aware of common or significant problems and their possible solutions.

IMPORTANT: Make sure to frequently check the known issues to get the most up-to-date information.

• Always perform all post-upgrade steps after each in-place upgrade to finish the upgrade. Skipping these steps leaves the systems in an unsupported state and leads to various issues. Trying to perform another in-place upgrade before finishing these steps is unsupported and can also cause a loss of the system.

IMPORTANT: Additional post-upgrade steps can be listed in generated preupgrade reports. Make sure to check these reports.

The following are general recommendations when planning consecutive in-place upgrades:

• Preparing for the upgrade steps and post-upgrade steps might be different for particular upgrade paths.

• It is recommended to test in-place upgrades on testing systems to get familiar with the process, possible problems, and additional steps that could be required based on the generated pre-upgrade report.

• To get initial information about possible issues and the required additional steps in advance, you can use the leapp preupgrade command. Note that this command does not modify the system and can be executed on any system any time before the planned in-place upgrade. You can also execute leapp preupgrade multiple times to get the up-to-date results.