2 Upgrade paths and methods #
SUSE® Linux Enterprise (SLE) allows upgrading an existing system to a later version or service pack. No new installation is needed. Existing data, such as home and data directories and system configuration, is kept intact. You can update from a local CD or DVD drive or from a central network installation source.
This chapter explains how to manually upgrade your SUSE Linux Enterprise system, be it by DVD, network, an automated process, or SUSE Manager.
2.1 Upgrading versus fresh installation #
Upgrades between two major releases of SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop are supported by SUSE. Whether it is better to upgrade or perform a fresh installation depends on your specific scenario. While upgrades involve less work, fresh installations ensure you benefit from all the new features of a release such as disk layout changes, specific file system features, and other improvements. To get the most out of your system, SUSE therefore recommends fresh installations in most scenarios.
In both cases—upgrade as well as a fresh installation—customers need to check if system settings and default values still fit their requirements.
For updates from one service pack of a specific release to another one of the same codestream, SUSE recommends to do it in-place, and not to perform a fresh installation. Nevertheless, there may be reasons and scenarios for a customer to perform a fresh installation in this case, too. The decision as to which is more suitable can only be made by the customer.
2.2 Supported upgrade and migration paths to SLED 15 SP5 #
Before you perform any migration, read Chapter 3, Preparing the upgrade.
Cross-architecture upgrades, such as upgrading from a 32-bit version of SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop to the 64-bit version, or upgrading from big endian to little endian are not supported!
Also, since SUSE Linux Enterprise 15 is 64-bit only, upgrades from any 32-bit SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 systems to SUSE Linux Enterprise 15 and later are not supported.
To make a cross-architecture upgrade, you need to perform a new installation.
Skipping service packs on SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop is not supported. You need to consecutively install all service packs.
The upgrade paths described here apply only to SUSE Linux Enterprise as the operating system of a machine, not to all the applications it runs. If you have workloads such as PostgreSQL or MariaDB databases, intermediate OS upgrades may be required in order to upgrade your applications.
Before upgrading the operating system, consult the Release Notes for information about database versions. If a new major version is shipped, refer to Chapter 3, Preparing the upgrade for upgrade instructions.
- Upgrading from SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 12 GA / SP1 / SP2
Upgrading from SLED 12 SP2 or older service packs directly is not supported. You need at least SLED 12 SP3 or SP4 before you can proceed to SLED 15 GA or SP1. Then, consecutively install all service packs up to SLED 15 SP5.
If you cannot do a fresh installation, first, upgrade your installed SLED 12 service pack to SLED 12 SP3 or SP4. This upgrade is described in the SLED 12 SP4 Deployment Guide.
- Upgrading from SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 12 SP3 / SP4
Upgrading from SLED 12 SP4 or older service packs directly is not supported. You first have to upgrade to SLED 15 GA or SP1 before you can proceed to SLED 15 SP5 by consecutively installing all service packs.
If you cannot do a fresh installation, first, upgrade your installed SLED 12 SP3 or SP4 to SLED 15 GA or SP1. This upgrade is described in the SLED 12 SP4 Deployment Guide.
- Upgrading from SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 15 GA / SP1 / SP2 / SP3
Upgrading from SLED 15 GA, SP1, SP2 or SP3 directly is not supported. You need at least SLED 15 SP4 before you can proceed to SLED 15 SP5.
- Upgrading from SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 15 SP4
Upgrading from SLED 15 SP4 is supported both online and offline. Refer to Section 2.3, “Online and offline upgrade” for details.
2.3 Online and offline upgrade #
SUSE supports the following upgrade and migration methods. For more information about the terminology, see Section 1.1, “Terminology”. The methods are:
- Online
Upgrades that are executed from the running operating system itself (system up and running state). Examples: online update with Zypper or YaST, connected through SUSE Customer Center or Repository Mirroring Tool (RMT), Salt Policy via SUSE Manager.
For details, see Chapter 5, Upgrading online.
When migrating between Service Packs of the same major release, we suggest following Section 5.4, “Upgrading with the online migration tool (YaST)” or Section 5.5, “Upgrading with Zypper”.
- Offline
Upgrading offline implies that the operating system to be upgraded is not running (system down state). Instead, the installer for the target operating system is booted (for example, from the installation media, via network or via local boot loader), and performs the upgrade.
For details, see Chapter 4, Upgrading offline.
If your machine is managed by SUSE Manager, update it as described in the SUSE Manager documentation. The Client Migration procedure is described in the SUSE Manager Upgrade Guide, available at https://documentation.suse.com/suma/.