Upgrading from CentOS 7.9 - Recommendations

Help! (Home for newbies)
1

Hi everyone!
I have the following setup:
Operating system: CentOS Linux 7.9.2009
Virtualmin Version: wbm-virtual-server Webmin module Virtualmin Virtual Servers 7.20.1.gpl-1

Currently my Virtualmin setup runs
Apache version 2.4.6
Dovecot Version 2.2.36
Postfix version 2.10.1
MariaDB version 5.5.68
ConfigServer Security & Firewall version 14.24

My host, Contabo offers a server install (or reinstall) with webmin included, upon which I have installed Virtualmin. (probably as a module??)

That’s as much info as I can find or remember as this was done around 2018-2019

I need to upgrade to a newer OS. My questions are:

  1. What’s the recommended OS for Virtualmin, for long term support. I don’t want to have to repeat this process again if possible..

Based off that,

  1. Is there a way to do an in place upgrade? I am afraid that if I do a new server install, it will have newer MariaDB etc and websites will fail or have too many issues to fix maximizing downtime for clients.

Would websites (mostly wordpress and a few joomlas) work if the upgrade process takes MariaDB from 5.5 → 10? Would there be compatibility problems?

I would like to have as little downtime as possible as a few of the hosted websites have their emails hosted with me and I would like to avoid interruption to services

What is the best upgrade path considering all of the above?

I would appreciate step-by-step instructions or pointing me to a full guide, as I have seem more than 20 online but they all seem to be different or not fully fit my situation or mention caveats that will probably have my head spinning for days.

I am a one man army at work so every help is appreciated. I am willing to pay for help.

Thanks in advance for any help!

2

The best way forward is to spin up a new Alma or Rocky 9 instance, install Virtualmin (and Webmin) with our installation script, and then migrate the data.

Don’t use images created by others.

3

Thanks for the reply. If you could help a bit with a few more questions/clarifications?

  1. So Rocky is recommended?
  2. Do I choose Contabo’s option to install Rocky/Alma + Webmin + LAMP?
  3. Does the Virtualmin installer script install Virtualmin + Webmin + LAMP stack or only Virtualmin?
  4. From your experience, would the websites with MariaDB 5.5 have problems with the new MariaDB 10+ ?
  5. Do you recommend LAMP stack or some kind of nginx + varnish + apache setup? Is it officially supported?

Thanks again for any help

4

If you wait a little longer Rocky 10 will be certified, else use Rocky 9.

Just get Contabo Rocky 9/10 with nothing else.

Then run the standard VMin install script. Don’t use Contabo images or add stuff yourself until after Virtualmin is installed and running. And probably not even then as VMin installs pretty much all that it and you need.

If using LAMP now, stick with it - it’s the default for VMin.

1 Like
5

Wow that was fast! I really appreciate it!

  1. So will the VMin install script also install Webmin??

  2. Would I have to enter the same hostname as my current server to avoid problems with SSL etc in mail services? All my hosted domains use my servers SSL for connecting thunderbird, outlook etc since I couldn’t add per domain SSL to Postfix (it would overwrite the current each time I added a new SSL domain to it via VMin)

  3. would I need to use the same root password for the server?

  4. When should I install CSF (and hopefully restore all configs) ? After everything is done (account restore etc) or right away?

6

Yes, that’s right—nothing else is needed.

Yes, sure, but it doesn’t really matter. It can be any name that links to your system.

It’s up to you, as it depends. The best option to my mind is to have the root account password not enabled and use the same password-less sudo account, to log in using a public key via SSH; and, for Webmin, use a completely different privileged username with a separate password and 2FA.

However, using the standard root password for everything might also work; make sure the password is just strong and has 2FA enabled.

I would install it afterward. In this case, you won’t have to worry about manually disabling firewalld and fail2ban services because the CSF installer will do it for you.