Confirm that a conversion to RHEL completed successfully, and troubleshoot potential problems if it did not.
After a successful conversion, you must review the converted system to verify that the system works as expected.
Start by reviewing the logs.
The convert2rhel command does not print all output to the terminal that it records during the conversion.
Debugging-level messages are saved in log files in the /var/log/convert2rhel directory.
The output from the most recent run of the convert2rhel command is stored in the convert2rhel.log file in that directory.
The logs of previous runs are stored in the archives subdirectory.
Those log files are named convert2rhel-.
The string after YYYYMMDDTHHMMSSZ.logconvert2rhel in the file name specifies when the run ended, where YYYY is the year, MM is the month, DD is the day, and HHMMSS is the time in hours, minutes, and seconds in UTC.
For example, imagine that the convert2rhel or convert2rhel analyze command completed running at 58 seconds past 6:14 PM on January 15, 2024, in the US Central Standard Time time zone.
This time in UTC would be 00:14:58 on January 16, 2024, and the name of the file in the archives subdirectory would be convert2rhel-20240116T001458Z.log.
There are two additional files in the /var/log/convert2rhel directory that are useful for diagnosing problems:
rpm_va.log
Stores the output of the rpm -Va command from before you ran the conversion.
The log file indicates which files in a software package has contents, permissions, or timestamps that have changed since the files were installed by the package, prior to any conversion.
rpm_va_after_conversion.log
Stores the output of the rpm -Va command from the end of the conversion process.
The log file indicates which files in a software package has contents, permissions, or timestamps that have been changed as part of the conversion process.
Some minor differences between the RPM log files is expected.
Because the operating system you are converting to RHEL is based on RHEL, the differences are inconsequential.
If you experience post-conversion problems, then review these files to find instances of significant divergence.
To interpret the strings that precede the name of each affected file, see the "VERIFY OPTIONS" section of the rpm(8) man page.
Some changes that are reported by the rpm_va*.log files are expected in the standard operation of a system.
A file might have changed after it was installed on your server as part of typical configuration changes or customization, and therefore a change does not necessarily indicate a problem.
Sometimes when you convert a system from another distribution to RHEL, some packages might be installed without all their package dependencies. Missing package dependencies can cause the installed package that needs them to malfunction.
On RHEL 7, you can identify package dependency issues by running the yum check dependencies command.
If that command produces no output, then it detects no dependency issues.
However, if that command produces output, then you should reinstall the affected packages with the yum command (on RHEL 7 and RHEL 8) or with the dnf command (on newer versions of RHEL).
The reinstallation process automatically installs the missing dependencies.
In some cases, the dependency problem might be due to a third-party package that is not in the package repositories. To resolve the problem, get those dependencies from your third-party vendor and install them manually.
As part of your planning for conversion, you should have developed a plan to validate the operation of your applications. After conversion, execute that plan and confirm that your application continues to function correctly on Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
To support your application on RHEL, your vendor might specify particular settings to configure, or require certain RHEL kernel versions that you must run.
Sometimes application issues are caused by differences between the packages that are provided by your original distribution and those in RHEL. For example, your original distribution might ship additional packages beyond those supported by RHEL.
You can raise a Severity 3 or Severity 4 support case with Red Hat if you have problems with the conversion process.
If you can, install the sos package on your converted server, and run the sosreport command to generate a report.
Then open a support case with Red Hat by following the instructions in the Knowledgebase: "How Do I Open and Manage a Support Case on the Customer Portal?" article.
For the product information, select the target version of RHEL that you are attempting to convert your server to.
If you can collect a report from the sosreport command, then provide that with your support request.
Leave the case ID empty.
After you file a support case, Red Hat Support follows up with you based on the severity of your issue and the support level of your subscription as specified in the Production Support Terms of Service.
Guidelines for the scope of support that Red Hat provides for Convert2RHEL are covered in the Knowledgebase: "Convert2RHEL Support Policy" article.
convert2rhel(1), sosreport(1), yum(8), dnf(8), and rpm(8) man pages
For more information, refer to the Troubleshooting Conversions chapter in Converting from an RPM-based Linux Distribution to RHEL at https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-us/red_hat_enterprise_linux/8/html-single/converting_from_an_rpm-based_linux_distribution_to_rhel/index#assembly_troubleshooting-rhel-conversions_converting-from-a-linux-distribution-to-rhel
Production Support Terms of Service
Knowledgebase: "How Do I Open and Manage a Support Case on the Customer Portal?"