CloudLinux ELevate Project

Yes. A full system upgrade is an inherently invasive procedure. In some cases, due to different system configurations, package errors, or even power failures, you may encounter issues during the upgrade process that can’t be automatically recovered from. Said issues may be severe, up to and including rendering the system completely inaccessible. To that end, it’s highly recommended never to run ELevate on a system without a backup ready. Ideally, perform a trial run in a disposable environment, like a VM or a sandbox, to verify that migration functions as expected before you attempt to migrate a system.

It depends. It’s possible that ELevate will not upgrade some software, especially one that isn’t related to CloudLinux or a supported panel. The ELevate project only supports a subset of package repositories it’s aware of – that is, package repositories that are included in its configuration files. Packages from repositories Leapp is unaware of will not be upgraded. It’s possible to add missing repositories and packages to ELevate yourself if you’re so inclined. Please check the Contribution section for more information on how to do so.

Yes. One of the major steps of the upgrade process involves rebooting into a special initramfs environment, from which your system’s software will be upgraded. During that period of time, the system will be mostly non-functional and inaccessible. This stage may take up to an hour, so schedule the upgrade accordingly. During the preparation stages – that is, when the upgrade process is first initiated and before the system is rebooted – the system’s services will function normally. CloudLinux 7 no panel/custom panel and cPanel upgrade scenarios behave somewhat differently during the preparation stage. The cPanel scenario will disable the site functionality from this stage up until completion, while the no-panel/custom panel scenario will not.

Depending on the amount and size of the packages that need to be updated, the upgrade process may take a long time, up to several hours. This time also varies with the machine’s resources and the speed of the internet connection. If the machine remains unresponsive for more than 2 hours after rebooting, assume the upgrade process failed during the post-reboot phase.

Depending on the web panel you have installed on your system, the upgrade process will require different steps.

At the moment, ELevate migration from CloudLinux 7 to CloudLinux 8 is supported on the following:

• no panel/custom panel systems;
• cPanel systems.

In such a case, you can upgrade through the Leapp tool directly.

Please refer to the CloudLinux 7 with no panel/custom panel ELevate Scenario for step-by-step instructions.

With cPanel present on the machine, you should run the upgrade process through the elevate-cpanel tool.

Please refer to the CloudLinux 7 with cPanel ELevate Scenario for step-by-step instructions.

Unfortunately, CloudLinux ELevate doesn’t support these system configurations yet.

Instead, you can create a new machine with CloudLinux 8 and migrate your system’s license and configuration to it.

Please refer to the following documentation links for instructions on how to do so:

• How to Backup & Migrate All CloudLinux Settings to Another Server
• How to Restore PHP Selector Options
• How to obtain activation keys, register and migrate servers

Please check the Troubleshooting section of the documentation.

Please contact CloudLinux Support with a description of your issue. When filing an issue, include:

Steps to reproduce the issue

• All files in the /var/log/leapp
• /var/lib/leapp/leapp.db
• journalctl
• Also, you can provide other helpful materials (e.g. storage info)

For your convenience you can pack all logs with the following command: # tar -czf leapp-logs.tgz /var/log/leapp /var/lib/leapp/leapp.db

Then you may attach only the leapp-logs.tgz file. Before gathering data, if possible, re-run the leapp command that encountered an issue with the --debug flag, e.g.: leapp upgrade --debug.

If you need more details about why a Leapp process failed, you can access detailed logs at:

/var/log/leapp/leapp-report.txt
/var/log/leapp/leapp-report.json
/var/log/leapp/leapp-upgrade.log

The main upgrade transaction is performed from a customized initramfs environment. While this stage of the upgrade process is ongoing, the system is inaccessible through SSH and is mostly non-functional – however, it can still be accessed or monitored via IPMI/VNC. This stage is time-consuming and can take up to an hour, and it is possible, even if unlikely, that the upgrade process during this stage may encounter an unrecoverable error and halt. Therefore, although IPMI/VNC access is not strictly necessary, it’s recommended, since it’ll be difficult to monitor the main upgrade transaction otherwise.