Upgrading to Fedora 45: from 44, step by step

This page covers one concrete path: upgrading from Fedora 44 to 45. For the mechanism itself (which methods are supported, how offline transactions work) see Upgrade between Fedora releases; for what changed in F45 see Fedora 45: changes, download and upgrade.

Before upgrading: three things first

1. Back up your data: if the upgrade fails, a backup is the only thing you can fall back on afterwards.
2. Read the F45 Release Notes: confirm removals, default changes and the components you depend on.
3. Bring 44 fully up to date:

sudo dnf upgrade --refresh

Caution

Do not start the upgrade with pending updates. The official docs make “update to the latest first” a prerequisite; skipping it mixes two kinds of problem: patches the old release never finished, and the upgrade itself.

Choosing a path: graphical or command line

• Fedora Workstation: use the upgrade entry in GNOME Software;
• KDE Plasma: use Upgrade Now in Discover;
• Server, minimal and custom installs: use the DNF System Upgrade command line.

The command line in three stages: download, reboot, install

sudo dnf system-upgrade download --releasever=45

The system remains usable during the download stage; when it finishes, run:

sudo dnf system-upgrade reboot

The system reboots into a transitional environment that performs the install, then reboots into 45. The install stage does not run in your current system, so an interrupted upgrade cannot simply be re-run.

Note

Before downloading you can point the cache elsewhere with --destdir; a major upgrade usually needs several GB, so check free space first when /var is a separate partition.

After the upgrade: F45-specific checks

Three things differ from 44 and are worth confirming one by one:

1. Repository configuration location: packaged repositories moved from /etc/yum.repos.d to /usr/share/dnf5/repos.d, and GPG keys live in /usr/share/pki/rpm-gpg. Confirm repositories with dnf repolist, then look at ls /usr/share/dnf5/repos.d; custom repositories stay in /etc/yum.repos.d.
2. Signature checking is enforced: the rpm layer refuses unsigned packages; dnf refuses them from repositories as well, while the local-file path only warns. Confirm signatures before installing third-party RPMs; details in Fedora security updates and advisories.
3. The console moved to kmscon: on Server and Workstation the VT console is provided by userspace kmscon; Cloud images do not enable it. When local console behaviour differs from what you expect, check this first.

Caution

Do not “fix” anything after the upgrade with a manual dnf upgrade: that is unsupported and turns one failed upgrade into an unsupported mixed state.

Checking after the upgrade: a block you can copy

Once the upgrade finishes and you reboot into it, run these instead of going by feel:

grep -E "^(NAME|VERSION_ID|VARIANT)" /etc/os-release
rpm -q rpm
dnf repolist | tail -n +2 | wc -l
ls /usr/share/dnf5/repos.d/*.repo | wc -l
ls /etc/yum.repos.d/*.repo 2>/dev/null | wc -l

Measured output on F45:

NAME="Fedora Linux"
VERSION_ID=45
VARIANT="Cloud Edition"
rpm-6.1.0-1.fc45.x86_64
4
4
0

How to read it:

Item	Expected	What it means otherwise
VERSION_ID	45	the upgrade did not complete, still on the old release
rpm -q rpm	6.1.x	still rpm 6.0.x from F44, the upgrade did not take effect
repolist count	matches the repositories you enable	repositories lost, check /usr/share/dnf5/repos.d
/etc/yum.repos.d count	0 with no custom repositories	non-zero just means you have custom ones, which is normal

That last line matters: an empty /etc/yum.repos.d is the normal state on F45, not lost repositories — the packaged ones moved to /usr/share/dnf5/repos.d, see repository configuration moves to /usr.

Failure and recovery

• Download-stage failure: read the error (dependencies, third-party sources, keys), fix the cause and download again; do not retry blindly.
• Install-stage failure: restore a bootable system first, then talk about finishing the upgrade; the rescue kernel and booting the old kernel are covered in Troubleshooting a failed upgrade.
• Something is off after the upgrade: confirm the version in /etc/os-release and dnf repolist before deciding whether the upgrade is incomplete or the new release behaves differently.

Related pages

• Backup and restore — what to back up before upgrading
• Fedora 45: changes, download and upgrade — release status and change list
• Upgrade between Fedora releases — the mechanism, supported paths and unsupported methods
• Troubleshooting a failed upgrade — locating and recovering after a failure
• Fedora repositories and dnf5 — repository locations and syntax after the upgrade
• Fedora security updates and advisories — signature checking and updates
• Official: Upgrading Fedora using the DNF system upgrade