How To Upgrade to CentOS 7.2 from 7.1/7.0

The latest version of CentOS was released a late 2015. The new release contain a few security features and the current users of CentOS 7.1 and 7.0  are advised to upgrade their system to latest version. In case you are running it with WHM/cPanel you don't have to do anything as it will be upgraded automatically to the newer version. 

If you are using it without the WHM/cPanel, this tutorial will guide you on how to upgrade to the latest version which is CentOS 7.2. Follow these steps

Checking Your CentOS Version

Before you dive into the configuration and all that, first you need to check which version you have. To do this head over to  /etc/redhat-release and /etc/centos-release. You just need to check content of one of these files.  

# cat /etc/redhat-release

CentOS Linux release 7.1.1503 (Core)

2. Backing up Important Data

Before upgrading centos make sure you have taken backup of all your data to remote location. Below is few suggested items to take backup.

• Backup all databases ( MySQL, PostgreSQL, etc.. )
• Backup all configuration files ( Apache, PHP, MySQL, DNS and Other services )
• Backup all websites data running in webserver
• Backup other service if any running on system

3. Upgrading CentOS 7

Following are the steps to help you to upgrade CentOS to latest release. Use yum upgrade command to upgrade your current running system.

# yum clean all

# yum update

After successful completion of above command just reboot your system.

# reboot

4. Verifying the  Upgrade

Finally verify that your system has been upgraded successfully. To confirm it check the/etc/redhat-release file content.

# cat /etc/redhat-release