How to Upgrade CentOS to CentOS 8 Stream

In order to upgrade to CentOS 8 Stream, you need to access your VPS via SSH. All the commands should be executed in CLI. The upgrade process will take less than 15 minutes. Please execute commands from this guide one by one (don’t copy the $ symbol). Please make sure that the previous command has succeeded before executing the next one. The full video guide can be found at the end of this instruction.

Preparation

1. Make a backup of all important files before upgrading. If you need help, contact our support team – we’ll make a backup for you.
2. Start by checking the current OS version:

   $ cat /etc/centos-release​

   You’ll see an output that should look like this: CentOS Linux release 8.0.1905 (Core)

Installation

1. Install the CentOS Stream repository:

   $ dnf install centos-release-stream​

2. Wait until the system loads the package list and asks for confirmation. Confirm the updating by typing “y”:

   Transaction Summary
   ==========================
   Install 4 Packages
   
   Total download size: 64k
   Is this ok [y/N]:y​

3. Wait until all the packages are downloaded.
4. Set the new repository as default:

   $ dnf swap centos-{linux,stream}-repos​

5. Wait until the system loads the package list and asks for confirmation. Confirm the updating by typing “y”:

   Transaction Summary
   ==========================
   Install 2 Packages
   Remove 1 Packages
   
   Total download size: 42k
   Is this ok [y/N]:y​

6. Wait until all the packages are installed.

Synchronization

1. Run the synchronization with the new repository:

   $ dnf distro-sync​

2. Wait until the system loads the packages list and confirm the installation by typing “y”:

   Transaction Summary
   ==========================
   Install 21 Packages
   Upgrade 294 Packages
   
   Total download size: 429M
   Is this ok [y/N]:y​

3. To make sure that the update was successful, run the check OS version command again:

   $ cat /etc/release​

   The output should look like this: CentOS Stream release 8

Done. You are awesome.