I am preparing to upgrade several SLES 12 SP3 servers to SLES 12 SP5.
A vendor informed me you can upgrade directly from SLES 12 SP3 to SLES 12 SP5. In place.
However, the documentation does not support this.
Has anyone upgraded directly to SLES 12 SP5 from SLES 12 SP3 skipping SLES 12 SP4 in between?
Thank you!
ÂUpgrading from SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 GA/SP1/SP2/SP3 to SP5
Direct upgrades from SLE 12 GA, SP1, SP2, or SP3 to SP5 are not supported. Upgrade to SLES 12 SP4 first.Â
Hi and welcome to the Forum 
If you are running SLES 12 SP3 LTSS, then it is supported, else if just SP3, then no you need to update to SP4 first.
Ref: https://documentation.suse.com/sles/12-SP5/html/SLES-all/cha-update-sle.html#sec-update-sle-paths
Thank you. We do not have LTSS. I thought I would need to move to SP4 first. Much work ahead!
Just curious. I will start my upgrades tomorrow: sp3 to sp4 and then sp5.
Documentation says to install most recent patches. Well, because our licenses expired these servers have not been patched for several months and there are no patches for sp3 in the channel.
Do you think the upgrade will still work.
Thank you!
Note: We now have current licenses and I can see the path in online migration to sp4 and sp5.
@Kathy You should be fine as it will update any existing packages installed to the next release, so any outstanding patches would be covered.
As always. Thank you Malcolm!!