Death of CentOS

[WildWestDesigns]

I didn't know if I should put this in the general software or here as it doesn't really fit both, but for most on here it would be more related to website and website hosting then anything else.

For those that don't know, CentOS is the free community version of Red Hat (or should it be IBM now as IBM bought Red Hat?) Enterprise Linux (or RHEL), I only use it as it was the only free OS for running Maya (when I was running Maya)). This is an OS that has a 10 yr lifecycle and as such, it is used for servers, particularly web servers. If your site uses CPanel for admin, typically it's on a CentOS server.

Well, CentOS 8, which I think should have been supported until 2029, will only be good until Dec 2021.

Be ready to budget more for your sites as CentOS is one of the biggest players for web servers.

 

[netsol]

it doesn't really effect any of my clients YET.th ey are all running RHEL & paying for support. . although i would be hard pressed to tell you the last time we got anything useful out of a call to tech support. one client has been running one flavor or another, of unix since 1982.
support was better when it was SCO.

our basis programmer just turned 60. life will go on when i kick the bucket, but good programmers for the older legacy apps are like plasterers. getter harder & harder to find

 

[SignMeUpGraphics]

Great, so now we'll have a questionable CentOS Stream, and v7 will actually outlast v8.
I was part way through a new v8 build but now I'll look elsewhere.

 

[WildWestDesigns]

it doesn't really effect any of my clients YET.th ey are all running RHEL & paying for support. . although i would be hard pressed to tell you the last time we got anything useful out of a call to tech support. one client has been running one flavor or another, of unix since 1982.
support was better when it was SCO.

our basis programmer just turned 60. life will go on when i kick the bucket, but good programmers for the older legacy apps are like plasterers. getter harder & harder to find

My mom was a COBOL programmer back in the day and that little language had a surge of need for programmers this year.

With regard to apps, this is why I like cross platform, cross arch frameworks (huge fan of Qt (even Adobe for certain portions of their software use it) even node apps can be packaged for multi arch platforms).

Unfortunately for businesses the kind of frequently rolling releases are no bueno for business applications that don't want to see a lot of change, but I just don't see how things used to be done lasting the same way.

I never tried RHEL as the only way to get it for free is to compile from source and while I don't have a problem compiling programs, I'm just not that adventurous with regard to OSs, so I never messed with it.


As far as support goes, I have always found that getting community support (even when talking about Windows, Adobe, Corel and similar products) has always been better then from OEM. It always seemed like I always had to just listen to their normal check boxes before we would get to the actual meat of the problem.

Great, so now we'll have a questionable CentOS Stream, and v7 will actually outlast v8.
I was part way through a new v8 build but now I'll look elsewhere.

I feel that pain. It is not fun migrating from one version for a web server to the next.

 

[tulsagraphics]

I manage just over 400 domains at my other business (web dev, sysadmin, etc.)... across 9 dedicated servers... most of which are CentOS-based (others are Ubuntu, and a few of them run alt panels like Cyberpanel and RunCloud).

cPanel changed their pricing structure this year (big increase in cost, which really sucked)... so I searched and tested many other control panels. Eventually I decided it wasn't worth the headache of migrating to another panel so I (creatively) merged a handful of my servers to make up the difference in cost, so I didn't have to increase pricing for my clients. These cPanel-to-cPanel migrations were a decent amount of work, but ultimately a win for me, price-wise... and a bit less maintenance in the end.

The main problem isn't migrating applications and data. 95% of those migrations are pretty straightforward. (install some libraries, changer a few paths, mysqldumps > imports, etc. ) The big issue is email accounts (for my clients anyway).

For example, one of my larger clients has about 90 employees in a very non-tech savvy industry (old school manufacturing), and each employee has multiple devices, phones, etc. Many of their offices have devices like scanner/copiers that automatically email scanned documents to certain departments. Lots of devices sending lots of email (a mix of POP3 and IMAP in multiple international locations). I'd say that at least 90% of those folks have no idea what their passwords are, as these email accounts were created for them years ago with the help of an IT guy they used to have on staff (now it's just "me"). That's just one client. I have about 30 companies using cPanel-based email.

When switching control panels, there is no reliable option for migrating from a cPanel-based email account to another platform. You can migrate emails/attachments/data, etc... but the mechanism for cPanel email authentication (exim/dovecot) is structured in such a way (encrypted passwords) that it can't be easily migrated into another (non-cPanel-based) mail server. The only option is to reset email credentials for each account, manually... and then reconfigure each user's email clients (Outlook, iPhones, scanners, etc.) and resync... all done remotely. Ugh!

Honestly I don't mind switching to CyberPanel, Virtualmin, or some other low cost, non-CentOS-based control panel.... I just don't want to mess with the email accounts. Bah!

 

[WildWestDesigns]

Found out about this. Hopefully a drop in replacement. I think that it was done by the same guy that started CentOS.

I don't see a release now, but hopefully soon, at least before EOL of CentOS 7 and/or 8.

This is the joyful thing about open source that one can't find with closed source programs. If there is enough need for it to continue, usually someone or group will pick it back up.


I think the biggest take away from this (and I dealt with this specifically about 6 yrs ago when I did a total shift from one platform to another) is always be able to go elsewhere if a vendor does something that "you" don't agree with. How many complain about something that a software vendor does, but still shell out money to them? Not going to get them to change, have to hit them at where it counts, the bottom line. Doesn't matter what specific vendor one is talking about, this can happen at any time with little notification (as is this case, remember the EULA that most people don't take the time to read?).

 

[FatihSuth]

It's a bummer that it's getting the boot after so many years of faithful service. And yeah, it's definitely a big deal for web hosting and servers, especially if you're using CPanel. But don't freak out just yet! There is an option called Extended Lifecycle Support (ELS) for CentOS 7 that can keep your servers supported until 2024 https://tuxcare.com/extended-lifecycle-support/centos-7-extended-support/. It's definitely a good idea to start budgeting for a new server or OS eventually, but ELS can give you some breathing room and time to plan things out.