An Oracle White Paper February 2013 SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 11 to Oracle Linux 6 Migration Guide SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 11 to Oracle Linux 6 Migration Guide Introduction ....................................................................................... 1 Benefits of Migrating to Oracle Linux ................................................. 2 Planning Your Migration .................................................................... 2 General Migration Steps .................................................................... 3 Application Inventory ......................................................................... 4 Inventory of Applications in a Standard Build ................................. 5 Third-Party Application Inventory ................................................... 7 Breaking Applications Down into Categories ................................. 8 System and Infrastructure Inventory .................................................. 8 Hardware Inventory ....................................................................... 9 Network Inventory ........................................................................ 10 License Inventory ........................................................................ 12 User Account Inventory ............................................................... 12 Platform Differences ........................................................................ 12 Differences in Applications/Features Used .................................. 12 Differences in Directory Structure ................................................ 18 Subscription Management ........................................................... 18 Transition Process ........................................................................... 19 Preparation .................................................................................. 20 Oracle Linux Installation .............................................................. 20 Postinstallation ............................................................................ 22 Conclusion ...................................................................................... 22 SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 11 to Oracle Linux 6 Migration Guide Introduction Migrating to a new operating system environment requires structured planning and testing. This document provides information regarding the differences between SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 and Oracle Linux 6. It provides suggestions for assessing your existing SUSE Linux environment in preparation for the migration and on how to use this information to successfully plan for and transition to Oracle Linux. 1 SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 11 to Oracle Linux 6 Migration Guide Benefits of Migrating to Oracle Linux Migrating from a SUSE Linux Enterprise system to Oracle Linux gives you benefits that include better performance, reliability, and scalability. Oracle Linux provides features and tools you won’t find in SUSE Linux. For example, Oracle Linux with Oracle’s Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel has been optimized for Oracle applications. It receives more than 100,000 hours of use daily and is deployed throughout Oracle on development and production systems. Oracle Linux customers have access to the latest innovations in the mainline kernel community as well as to world-class support and features meant to simplify their administrative tasks. With hundreds of validated configurations and tools for simplifying Oracle application installations, such as Oracle-validated and preinstalled Red Hat Package Manager (rpm) files and features such as DTrace and zero-downtime kernel patching with Ksplice (available with all Oracle Linux premier subscriptions), Oracle Linux is designed for mission-critical data centers. For additional information on the advantages of Oracle Linux, take a look at the following links: • Oracle Linux Components • More Oracle Linux Options • Deploy Linux Faster: Oracle Validated Configurations • Oracle Database 11g Installation on Oracle Linux 6 • Ksplice: Zero-Downtime Updates for Oracle Linux Planning Your Migration Before beginning a migration, you will need to do some preliminary work. First, you have to gather information on the software components currently installed on your SUSE Linux system and which ones will be migrated to Oracle Linux. In addition, you will need to spend time capturing information on your environment, such as the hardware configuration, network settings, security settings, and users and groups, to name a few. There are tools to help you accomplish these tasks, such as Yet Another Setup Tool (YaST), the SUSE Linux system setup and configuration tool. Alternatively, you can collect this information from the command line. The following sections outline some of these steps for you and provide examples. One key difference between SUSE Linux and Oracle Linux lies in the applications and features used to accomplish system and administrative tasks. For example, consider the features that support the access control security policies used in these two platforms. SUSE Linux uses AppArmor, and Oracle Linux relies on SELinux. This means that you need to think over a migration plan for converting data. The “Differences in Applications/Features Used” section presents a more detailed discussion on these two features, their differences, and some ideas for migration. 2 SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 11 to Oracle Linux 6 Migration Guide Although the application migration is going to take up a large portion of your effort, there are some other operations to accomplish to complete the overall migration process. For one thing, you have to take care of the system and infrastructure data to be migrated. For instance, with the application layer, your first step should be to inventory the system and infrastructure layer and then come up with a migration strategy. For more on this step, see the “System and Infrastructure Inventory” section. Once these inventories are completed, you can begin the process of setting up a test environment. You start by creating a scratch area to hold the configuration and application files and directories to be migrated. Once the archives are copied to the scratch area, you can install the Oracle Linux operating system and then restore the files from the backup copy, making conversions where required. The steps of the migration process are discussed in more detail in the “Transition Process” section. After you’ve successfully moved the applications as well as some system metadata from SUSE Linux to Oracle Linux, what else is left? Well, because SUSE Linux and Oracle Linux are different in some respects—including differences in directory structure and features/toolset—you may need to change some of your past procedures to accomplish certain tasks. You’ll also need to get accustomed to the new environment to take full advantage of it. General Migration Steps Viewed at a high level, the steps of migrating from SUSE Linux to Oracle Linux look fairly straightforward. The diagram in Figure 1 depicts these general steps: Figure 1. The steps of migrating from SUSE Linux to Oracle Linux are generally straightforward. 3 SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 11 to Oracle Linux 6 Migration Guide Let’s take a closer look at this general migration plan, covering its steps in greater detail. 1. Preparing SUSE Linux for migration • Collect information about the software installed, and then determine which applications to migrate (application inventory). • Break applications down into categories in light of the forthcoming migration. • Conduct system and infrastructure inventory. • Create a scratch area for storing the files to be migrated. • Shut down all running applications and services. • Archive the files and directories to be migrated, sending them to the scratch area. 2. Installing Oracle Linux • Customize the software installation so you don’t need to install more than the packages needed for operation. • Back up the data and metadata to be replaced, to be on the safe side. • Check port availability on Oracle Linux for all the services you had on SUSE Linux. 3. Moving data and metadata • Restore the operating system configuration files from the backup archive. • Restore the application-specific files from the backup archive. 4. Verifying migration • Test the migrated applications and services to verify that they are all working properly. Application Inventory Application inventory is the starting point in the migration process. In this step, you capture as much information as possible on the software components you want to migrate. To accomplish this task, you can use a package management tool. In the case of SUSE Linux, you can use the package manager YaST to obtain all the information on the package management applications installed in your system. It’s interesting to note that even third-party applications (those not included in a standard build but installed as Red Hat Package Manager [RPM] packages) will be visible in the package manager. Be forewarned, though: the software installed manually (i.e. using [./configure], [make], [make install] sequence) or with custom installers will not be detected by the package manager. Further details are provided in the following sections. 4 SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 11 to Oracle Linux 6 Migration Guide Inventory of Applications in a Standard Build As mentioned, applications in a standard build as well as third-party applications installed as RPM packages are visible in the package manager. In this respect, there is no difference