[CentOS] upgrade of 32bit to 64 bit CentOS 5.7

Sun Jan 8 21:03:39 UTC 2012
Rob Kampen <rkampen at kampensonline.com>

On 01/09/2012 05:00 AM, Brian Mathis wrote:
> On Sat, Jan 7, 2012 at 11:30 PM, Rob Kampen<rkampen at kampensonline.com>  wrote:
>> Hi List,
>> Early in dec I was forced to upgrade one of my server systems -
>> initially built in 2004 on an intel server mb it finally failed.
>> Under some time pressure, I replaced the mb etc with a 64 bit asus
>> system and did a repair of the linux system upon reboot with a 64 bit DVD.
>> As one can imagine there were some headaches as the kernel was now 64
>> bit, but yum and friends were still 32 bit.
>> I managed to upgrade the required packages to 64 bit, rebooted the
>> server a few times and all appeared to function ok.
>> BTW the server runs bind, apache, postfix, dovecot, mysql, php and
>> related stuff.
>>
>> I have now relocated the server in a lights off situation and myself to
>> the other side of the planet.
>> Why all the history - well as I ssh into the box and do my weekly yum
>> updates, I find that there have been no updates, however all my other
>> servers have had multiple updates.
>>
>> Thus I did a rpm -qa and find there are only 65 rpm files listed - they
>> are all 64 bit or noarch - none of the core server files are present.
>>
>> How do I systematically update all the files from 32 bit to 64 bit?
>> As I am unable to physically get in front of this machine, I have zero
>> room for error - and need the machine to be up and operating each
>> business day.
>> My google searches have not given me any hits that help.
>> Any help, directions, things to be aware off etc - appreciated.
>> TIA
>
> I can't help with the 64-bit upgrade, though I suspect that will be
> extremely touchy if it's possible, but for a server like that which is
> business critical, you MUST add some kind of remote console access.
> There is no question of "if", only "when" you will need it, like a
> reboot that needs you to press F1 or something.  Attempting to perform
> this kind of upgrade without that would be very foolish.
>
Noted and agreed, unfortunately life stuff happened, so now I will look 
for a separate power device that I can remote control.
> If it's Dell you can add a DRAC card (used ones are not that
> expensive), or any other brand name will have something similar.  If
> it's not a brand name you can get pretty close using a Lantronix
> Spider and a remote power switch.  The system board might already have
> a BMC with some ability for remote access.
>
> Fix the remote access problem before trying the 64-bit upgrade.
>
>
> ❧ Brian Mathis
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