Migrating Away from Rocky Linux

Typical reasons to migrate away: compliance (needing RHEL subscription support), organizational standards, or ecosystem preference. Within the EL family there is official/community tooling; across families (EL → Debian/Ubuntu) there is no in-place path — reinstall-and-migrate only.

Path overview

In-place migration from Rocky to AlmaLinux (same major version) is supported by AlmaLinux’s official almalinux-deploy.sh script; its README explicitly lists Rocky Linux among supported conversions.

In-place migration from Rocky to RHEL is handled by Red Hat’s official convert2rhel utility, but its supported conversion matrix lists specific RHEL 8/9 source minor versions and requires a subscription or activation key; Rocky 10 is not listed.

Target	Method	Tool / notes
AlmaLinux (same major)	In-place	almalinux-deploy.sh (official AlmaLinux script; converts from Rocky)
RHEL 8/9 (minors listed in the official matrix)	In-place	convert2rhel (official Red Hat; subscription or activation key required; Rocky 10 is not in the supported matrix — for 10→RHEL use reinstall or await matrix updates, see official conversion paths)
CentOS Stream (same major)	In-place	No official script; manual release-package + repo swap, at your own risk
Other majors / other families	Reinstall	No in-place tooling: fresh install + restore data/configs/services

In-place conversion flow (AlmaLinux example)

1. Back up and snapshot (same as inbound migrations — non-negotiable);

2. Fetch the official script:

   curl -LO https://raw.githubusercontent.com/AlmaLinux/almalinux-deploy/master/almalinux-deploy.sh
   chmod +x almalinux-deploy.sh

3. Run and reboot: sudo ./almalinux-deploy.sh → sudo reboot;

4. Verify: cat /etc/os-release, dnf repolist, rpm -q almalinux-release;

5. Walk the post-migration checklist (main-site reference ↗).

Note

The checklist is identical inbound and outbound: services, firewall, SELinux, cron, third-party repos, kernel modules. Conversion tools swap distribution identity — they do not validate your workloads.

Cross-family exits (EL → Debian/Ubuntu)

No in-place path. Execute as reinstall-and-migrate:

1. Inventory: service list, package list (rpm -qa), config deltas (SELinux/AppArmor, firewalld/ufw, systemd units);
2. Fresh-install the target and rebuild item by item;
3. Move data (rsync / database dumps) and rehearse the cutover window (see backup drill (main-site reference ↗)).

Related

• Post-migration checklist (main-site reference ↗)
• Cross-distro migration matrix (hub site)