Migrating from Version 4 to 4.x

Migrating SUSE Manager from version 4 to 4.x (when available) can be done using either the YaST Online Migration tool, or with the Zypper command line tool.

Upgrades should be run from a text console, rather than a graphical interface like GNOME. If you are logged into a GNOME session running on the machine you are going to update, you will need to switch to a text console. This does not apply if you are logged in from a remote machine (unless you are running a VNC session with GNOME).

Migrate Using YaST

To perform the migration with YaST, use the Online Migration tool.

Procedure: Migrating with YaST

From the command prompt, as root, launch the YaST online migration tool:
```
yast2 migration
```
YaST will show the possible migration targets with detailed summaries.
Select the appropriate target, and follow the prompts to complete the migration.
Ensure the spacewalk services are running:
```
spacewalk-service start
```

If the process fails, check these issues first:

If YaST does not have the online migration module available, install the yast2-migration package. After installing, restart YaST to ensure the module is available.
If there are older updates available, YaST will notify you and ask to install them first. We strongly recommend you install all updates before performing the upgrade.

During the migration, YaST will install all recommended packages. This can significantly increase the installation size of the system. To only install required packages, open the /etc/zypp/zypp.conf configuration file and set these variables:

solver.onlyRequires = true
installRecommends = false

This changes the behavior of all future package operations.

Migrate Using Zypper

To perform the migration with Zypper, use the migration tool.

Procedure: Migrating with Zypper

From the command prompt, as root, launch the Zypper migration tool:
```
zypper migration
```
Zypper will show the possible migration targets with detailed summaries.
Select the appropriate target, and follow the prompts to complete the migration.
Ensure the spacewalk services are running:
```
spacewalk-service start
```

If the process fails, check these issues first:

If Zypper does not have the migration tool available, install the zypper-migration-plugin package.
If there are older updates available, Zypper will notify you and ask to install them first. We strongly recommend you install all updates before performing the upgrade.