How to convert CentOS 8 to AlmaLinux 8

AlmaLinux is a new operating system developed by CloudLinux as an alternative to CentOS 8. It has been announced that Long Term Support including patches and maintenance will be provided until 2029. With CentOS 8 due for EOL in December 2021 we are now recommending that customers installing new servers or virtual machines should use AlmaLinux 8 instead of CentOS 8.

If you already have a server or virtual machine running on CentOS 8 then this guide will assist you in migrating from CentOS 8 to AlmaLinux 8 without even requiring a reboot!

Note: You will need to be logged in as root or use sudo if necessary, for the purpose of this guide we assume you are logged in as root.

Difficult: Easy
Time Required for Migration: Approx 10 – 15 minutes depending on server processing power and load.

Step 1) Login to your CentOS 8 server by SSH and ensure it is up to date by running the following commands.

sudo dnf update
sudo dnf upgrade

Step 2) Install the curl package if you do not already have this on your server.

sudo dnf install curl

Step 3) Download the CentOS 8 to AlmaLinux 8 Migration Script direct from AlmaLinux’s Github Repository.

curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/AlmaLinux/almalinux-deploy/master/almalinux-deploy.sh

Step 4) Run the script.

bash almalinux-deploy.sh

Step 5) Once the script has completed and no errors are hopefully displayed then we can go ahead and check the OS-release is now showing AlmaLinux to confirm successful migration.

cat /etc/os-release

Step 6) It is also recommended to check the default kernel has automatically updated to contain “AlmaLinux”

grubby --info DEFAULT | grep AlmaLinux

That should be it! Enjoy AlmaLinux 8 and the Long Term Support!