The project includes software and methods for migrating CentOS 7 deployments to AlmaLinux 8 without needing to do a lot of heavy lifting and shifting.
But there’s an even better part. Actually, ELevate capabilities aren’t confined only to CentOS to AlmaLinux moves, but can be used with all migrations between different RHEL-based distributions, such as CentOS 7 to AlmaLinux 8, Rocky Linux 8, or Oracle Linux 8. This will allow maintainers and users alike make migrations smooth and easy.
Here’s the list to see which migration directions are available:
- CentOS 7 -> AlmaLinux 8
- CentOS 7 -> Rocky Linux 8
- CentOS 7 -> Oracle Linux 8
- CentOS 7 -> CentOS Stream 8
In the short term, AlmaLinux ELevate will be especially helpful for users of CentOS 7 who will be left without a clear upgrade path after the end of the year when Red Hat withdraws support for CentOS 8.
Until today, it simply wasn’t possible to dream of migrations like these and that need has become very acute for CentOS users. This is a cause the whole community can get behind.
Jack Aboutboul, AlmaLinux Community Manager
The migrations are performed “in-place”, which means all your data, applications and settings will be kept. In addition, migrations will require your system to reboot twice. You can visit the ELevate Quickstart Guide to see how to do it.
Related: CentOS 8 to Rocky Linux 8 Migration: A Step-by-Step Tutorial
How AlmaLinux ELevate accomplishes this feat is by utilizing Red Hat’s Leapp framework with a community created library and service for the migration set required for it. ELevate relies on the package evolution service (PES) which allows you to download, customize and submit new data sets for packages.
ELevate is open source, released under the Apache 2.0 License. You can learn more about it on the project’s website and on the AlmaLinux Wiki.
AlmaLinux is an open source, community-governed and forever-free enterprise Linux distribution. It is a 1:1 binary compatible fork of RHEL 8 and can be used as a direct CentOS replacement.
