This is quick guide, howto upgrade to CentOS 5.11 from CentOS 5.10 (5.9, 5.8, 5.7, 5.6, 5.5, 5.4, 5.3, 5.2, 5.1, 5.0).⌗

1. Change to root User⌗ 

su -
## OR ##
sudo -i

2. Backup all important data⌗

  • Backup /etc diretory
  • Backup important logs /var/log
  • Backup web server configs and sites
  • Dump MySQL databases
  • Dump PostgreSQL databases
  • Backup all what you need if something goes wrong

3. Check list of packages that are going to be updated⌗ 

yum list updates

4. Upgrade with yum update⌗

Official way to do upgrade:

yum update

Another way to do update is first clean all, second update glibc, yum, rpm and python packages and then update other packages like following:

yum clean all
yum update glibc* yum* rpm* python*
yum update

5. Reboot⌗ 

reboot

6. Check CentOS 5.11 release info and Check your entire system⌗ 

cat /etc/redhat-release
## Output ##
CentOS release 5.11 (Final)

Following needs redhat-lsb package

lsb_release -a
## Output ##
LSB Version:    :core-4.0-amd64:core-4.0-ia32:core-4.0-noarch:graphics-4.0-amd64:graphics-4.0-ia32:graphics-4.0-noarch:printing-4.0-amd64:printing-4.0-ia32:printing-4.0-noarch
Distributor ID: CentOS
Description:    CentOS release 5.11 (Final)
Release:        5.11
Codename:       Final

Check that your system is working normally and test every services.