SME Server 8

Status: Beta

SME Server Version 8 will be the next major version of SME Server, and will involve upgrading the base to CentOS 5. We are just in the early stages of development, but so far things look good. SME Server 8.0beta1 is based on CentOS 5.1.

See the Release Announcement for Beta1.

A copy of the CD image can be downloaded here.

Testing Team

Here are a list of the Testing Team for this release.

Gavin Weight (Coordinator)

Craig Jensen (~10 hrs a week)

Brian Read (~2-3 hours per week)

Considerations before installing

Please, please any issues report to our bug tracker under the SME Server 8 section (especially with SME Server 8.0beta1 as this is an early beta release). This way all problems can be fixed as quickly, early and efficiently as possible by the development team.

	Note:
	Since SME Server 8.0 is still beta no contribs will be released. Once the Release Candidate status is reached contribs will be released for contrib owners to check if their packages need updating.

Upgrade paths

CD

Upgrading from CD should work fine. If not file a bug here .

Yum

Setting up your SME Server 8 repository

Setup with the following yum repositories...

/sbin/e-smith/db yum_repositories set sme8os repository \
Name 'SME Server 8 - smeos' \
BaseURL 'http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/smeserver/releases/testing/8/smeos/i386/' \
EnableGroups yes \
GPGCheck no \
Visible yes \
status enabled

Expand your yum.conf...

expand-template /etc/yum.conf

SME Server 7.3

	Note:
	You are advised to only upgrade clean machines, e.g. without contribs or other modifications.

If you are running a fresh installation of SME Server 7.3 your upgrade should run problem free, if not please file a bug here .

You can upgrade your clean SME Server 7.3 server by following these steps:

1. Install the necessary packages from the sme8os repository: yum upgrade --disablerepo=* --enablerepo=sme8os
2. Once completed issue signal-event post-upgrade; signal-event reboot

SME Server 7.0, 7.1.x or 7.2

	Note:
	You are advised to only upgrade clean machines, e.g. without contribs or other modifications.

If you are trying to upgrade from a 7.0, 7.1.x or 7.2 server upgrading yum will fail with the following error:

--> Running transaction check
--> Processing Dependency: libstartup-notification-1.so.0 for package: libwnck
--> Processing Dependency: yum-metadata-parser for package: yum
--> Processing Dependency: startup-notification >= 0.5 for package: libwnck
--> Restarting Dependency Resolution with new changes.
--> Populating transaction set with selected packages. Please wait.
---> Downloading header for startup-notification to pack into transaction set.
startup-notification-0.8- 100% |=========================| 5.0 kB    00:00
---> Package startup-notification.i386 0:0.8-4.1 set to be updated
--> Running transaction check
--> Processing Dependency: yum-metadata-parser for package: yum
--> Finished Dependency Resolution
Error: Missing Dependency: yum-metadata-parser is needed by package yum
================================================================
No new rpms were installed. No additional commands are required.
================================================================
[root@example ~]#

You can solve this using the following steps:

1. You will need to download the yum-metadata-parser package from the SME Server 7.3 repository: wget http://mirror.contribs.org/smeserver/releases/7.3/smeos/i386/SME/RPMS/yum-metadata-parser-1.0-8.el4.centos.i386.rpm
2. Manually install the package as below: rpm -Uvh --oldpackage yum-metadata-parser-1.0-8.el4.centos.i386.rpm
3. Then type from command line: yum clean all
4. After that you should be able to upgrade with the following command: yum upgrade --disablerepo=* --enablerepo=sme8os
5. Once completed issue signal-event post-upgrade;signal-event reboot

Problems and bugs

If you have any bug issues with upgrading please open a new SME Server 8.x file a bug here

Major Changes

• CentOS 5 has dropped support for i586 and therefore SME Server 8 will not work on i586 hardware. See bugzilla:2845. i586 hardware means processors before and including Intel Pentium, Pentium MMX; AMD K5, K6, K6-II, K6-III and Via C3. i686 architecture processors are Intel Pentium Pro, Pentium II, Pentium III; AMD Athlon, Athlon XP and later.