RHEL 8 to RHEL 9 update running Zabbix 6.4

[kwbarron]

Hello all. Is an in-place upgrade from RHEL 8 to RHEL 9 possible when running Zabbix 6.4, without needing to completely rebuild Zabbix? I am trying to decide if I need to migrate to an entirely new VM or if the upgrade path is easy enough.

Thanks!

[tim.mooney]

I generally don't do in-place upgrades, I'll usually do a fresh reinstall of the new version and then re-apply whatever system-specific software is needed. My site uses a configuration management system, which can help make sure that nothing is missed on a system rebuild.

However, going from RHEL 8 to RHEL 9 for that version of Zabbix should be no problem.

The *earliest* version of PHP that RHEL 9 has is PHP 8.0.x. If you want to take a cautious approach, you could switch which PHP appstream (module) your RHEL 8 system is using now, before the upgrade, so that Zabbix 6.4 starts using PHP 8.0.x on RHEL 8. That will almost eliminate the differences in PHP between the two OS versions.

You don't say what backend database you're using, but if it's MariaDB, the earliest version of MariaDB that RHEL 9 has is MariaDB 10.5.x. You could do the same thing as with PHP -- switch your RHEL 8 mariadb module to the 10.5 series and run mysql-upgrade or mariadb-upgrade (whichever it's called) to upgrade the binary databases to the 10.5.x format before you do the OS upgrade.

You shouldn'ed need to do either of those steps beforehand, but if you do, it will slightly reduce the number of things that are changing as part of the OS upgrade.