Question CentOS is shifting focus from CentOS 8 to CentOS Stream

[bazzil]

Then what to do now with new servers?

- Install CentOS 8 anyhow and hope for the best?
- Install CentOS 7 and have old server software?
- Switch to something else ... Ubuntu???

Can someone give some good advice with pros and cons maybe?

ubuntu
pros: LTS
cons: new OS. Another's priest Gospel as we say here in Greece when something is different

centOS7
pros: you have support till 2024 that gives you time to think which will be your next steps
cons: there's no support afte 2024...

 

[Pleskie]

What will be the chances/odds there will be a solution before end of 2021?

Do you think YES there will be a solution before end 2021 (e.g. Rocky LInux) or NO there will not be a solution by then?

I created a poll.

 

[danami]

Can someone give some good advice with pros and cons maybe?

@Pleskie install Centos 8 as there will be easy upgrade paths to whatever Plesk decides to support.

 

[pleskpanel]

If you absolutely had to make a decision in the very short term, you might want to stick for CentOS 7 for the moment since it effectively has a longer runway than CentOS 8 (this puts you into the Rocky Linux path). CentOS 8 would force your hand within a year so CentOS 7 (or if you really had to, Ubuntu) would buy you time until the picture comes into better view. While owned by the same parent entity, Plesk has the advantage that it's already pretty familar with the Ubuntu space and I could see a scenario where Ubuntu and RockyLinux reach the finish line together for Plesk while cPanel has to make some even harder decisions.

What a year 2020 turned out to be, both in the digital and physical realms.

 

[pleskpanel]

@Pleskie install Centos 8 as there will be easy upgrade paths to whatever Plesk decides to support.

That implies that @Pleskie will have to migrate by CentOS 8 EOL whereas @Pleskie might buy more time to see how the OS battle shakes out with either CentOS 7 or Ubuntu.

 

[Pleskie]

@danami

>> install Centos 8 as there will be easy upgrade paths to whatever Plesk decides to support.

I am not sure what you mean. What does Plesk have to do with CentOS 8 quitting?

@pleskpanel

I understand what you are saying. CentOS 7 could be the wiser choice, however I so much hate the fact that I'm running old software then. I'd rather stick to CentOS 8 and hope Rocky Linux will be ready before end of this year. Are there any estimations when Rocky Linux will be up and running?

And how about CentOS 8 Stream? Would that be suitable for a live production environment? Or is it a no-go?

>> What a year 2020 turned out to be, both in the digital and physical realms.

I totally agree. Not the best year at all.

 

[klowet]

A few months ago, I migrated a whole Ceph cluster and many VM's (like name servers, monitoring servers, etc.) from CentOS 7 to 8. That's a pain.
I'm planning to migrate all systems to Debian in the coming months. Why?

• Just like CentOS, Debian is rock solid.
• Familiarity with the apt-family.
• No clear path what the feature will bring for Rocky. I'm sure it will be a succes with that team and their spirit. But to have a spin-off ready in "just a few months" before CentOS 8 supports ends ... short period. There maybe will be "something", but probably not tested much "in the wild". I'll give it a few years to become mature before putting it in production. Don't get me wrong, I really cheer such a project and have all confidence in it.
• CloudLinux will make another RHEL clone. Buth unclear how this will compete with their own OS.
• Oracle Linux is ... well, yeah ... it's Oracle.
• Debian is powered by the community, not by a company.
• Debian is a keeper since 1996.
• Debian is supported by most software I use (Proxmox PVE, Backup and Mail Gateway, Plesk, Zabbix, Ceph, etc.) so I can use it consistent on all VM's and physical (hypervisor) servers.
• Debian is supported for 5 years. That's the half of CentOS (in it's normal days). But it has a clear upgrade path without reinstalling the whole OS (but the used software like Plesk must support this).
• One can put the depreciation of the hardware in line of the releases when renewing hardware each 4-5 years.

Maybe that doesn't apply to you or your business, that's fine. But it does for me.
At first, I was chocked with Red Hat's decision. But it opened my eyes to review my systems and processes with a open mind.

• I've made time to learn Ansible in depth to automate the installation of new servers.
• Be prepared for bad news (don't be a negative doom thinker!). But when things don't go the way you planned; take a deep breath, let it sink in, look for opportunities, make a decision and execute.
• Don't take things for granted. Especially not when it's in the core of your business.
• Plan ahead, but be flexible to make changes every single day.

 

[Pleskie]

@klowet

Nince addition Klowet. I understand what you are saying. I recently built a nice menu with functions based on dnf, so I could easily install, update and remove packages. I do have no knowledge about apt and I am not sure if I could easily replace my custom functions. Are dnf and apt interchangable?

Why would you (for now) pick Debian over CentOS 7?

 

[klowet]

Are dnf and apt interchangable?

I'm not sure what you mean, but dnf and apt are two very different package managers. The result is of course the same: they'll install, delete and manage your packages. I would recommend to have a look to Ansible for this. It will save you much time once you've configured your playbooks. If you'r new to Ansible, have a look to this video course: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2_OBreMn7FplshFCWYlaN2uS8et9RjNG

Why would you (for now) pick Debian over CentOS 7?

CentOS 7 was released back in 2014. It's stable for sure, but has old packages. Eg kernel 3.10 vs 4.19 in Debian 10. I don't want to move back to an "old" system for the servers I have upgraded to CentOS 8 and I don't want to use old packages for new servers. Not for Plesk, not for my other services. Eg. when I look to Ceph version 15; it still works on CentOS 7, but some modules won't work on CentOS 7 due to missing Python 3 module dependencies.

When one still have CentOS 7 in production, then I wouldn't do anything right now. Then one has 3 years for deciding his next step and more news about Rocky (and maybe others) will be available. But, for me, I don't want to install a brand new server with old software of which I know will end in 3 years with no clear path. But again, that are my thoughts and the decisions I made for my business. Is installing a new server with CentOS 7 at this moment a wrong choice? No.

 

[Pleskie]

@klowet

I am not doing very much with my server. I build websites and I just need a server that is stable and secure. No need for fancy things. I think my choices are:

- stick to CentOS 8 and hope Rocky Linux will there before the end of year. If Rocky Linux is not finished in time I will have to make a choice end of the year about what to do.

- stick to CentOS 7 and accept it it older, but it does have support until 2024

- switch to Debian, but some packages might not work and I need to learn apt.

 

[Peter99]

AlmaLinux OS - Forever-Free Enterprise-Grade Operating System

An Open Source, community owned and governed, forever-free enterprise Linux distribution.

almalinux.org

"As stated, AlmaLinux will be a 1:1 binary compatible fork of RHEL, which means that your applications and services will remain compatible. For that reason, you can rapidly migrate any number of servers with just one command."

"CloudLinux has committed to supporting AlmaLinux until 2029, including stable and thoroughly tested updates and security patches."

I hope Plesk will support Almalinux - it seems to be the easy choice, if distros can be switched easily!

 

[Pleskie]

Sounds interesting @Peter99 !

So now we have choice between Rocky Linux and AlmaLinux if I understand correctly? And both claim to have their system up and running before CentOS 8 ends their support. This sounds very promising.

If this is, I quote "a 1:1 binary compatible fork of RHEL", does that mean it will automatically work fine with Plesk? Is that what it means? Could someone confirm?

 

[SacAutos]

Apparently the shockwave was felt back at Red Hat headquarters. Come Feb 1, if you've got 16 or few servers, you can have RHEL for free??

CentOS is gone—but RHEL is now free for up to 16 production servers

RHEL is now free for dev teams, and it’s even free in production for up to 16 systems.

arstechnica.com

 

[pleskpanel]

Apparently the shockwave was felt back at Red Hat headquarters. Come Feb 1, if you've got 16 or few servers, you can have RHEL for free??

CentOS is gone—but RHEL is now free for up to 16 production servers

RHEL is now free for dev teams, and it’s even free in production for up to 16 systems.

arstechnica.com

It truly still remains to be seen how the mass-market data centers will handle it. They're ultimately the ones that have the power to shift adoption decisions for the small to medium shops.

 

[SacAutos]

Sounds interesting @Peter99 !

So now we have choice between Rocky Linux and AlmaLinux if I understand correctly? And both claim to have their system up and running before CentOS 8 ends their support. This sounds very promising.

If this is, I quote "a 1:1 binary compatible fork of RHEL", does that mean it will automatically work fine with Plesk? Is that what it means? Could someone confirm?

And now add to that RHEL 8. I've just read an article on the Red Hat site that shows how to convert a CentOS 8 system into a RHEL 8 one. But none of that accounts for what happens if Plesk is installed on that server. Is there any guidance for doing that on a live server? Can that actually work or are we looking at a migration whatever flavor of CentOS-compatible platform we pick? Or am I just getting too far ahead of myself here...

 

[Pleskie]

And now add to that RHEL 8. I've just read an article on the Red Hat site that shows how to convert a CentOS 8 system into a RHEL 8 one. But none of that accounts for what happens if Plesk is installed on that server. Is there any guidance for doing that on a live server? Can that actually work or are we looking at a migration whatever flavor of CentOS-compatible platform we pick? Or am I just getting too far ahead of myself here...

>> And now add to that RHEL 8.

Hmmm ... they cut off CentOS 8. Why should we trust them this time?

>> Can that actually work or are we looking at a migration ...

If I'm not mistaking I read somewhere that CentOS 8 could be changed to Rocky Linux with just 1 line of code. Of AlmaLinux I'm not sure.

Maybe someone from the Plesk-team could give some advice? Is the Plesk team making preparations for a possible switch to Rocky Linux?

 

[Erickem]

I believe the decision will be made in 2021.

 

[Pleskie]

I believe the decision will be made in 2021.

It would be nice if the Pleks-team could inform us about this issue since 2021 is still 11 months to go.

When will we hear something from Plesk?

I need to install a new server and for now I think I will go for CentOS 8, because I think there will be alternatives at the end of the year which I can easily switch to, like Rocky Linux. BUT ... is the Plesk-team already making preparations? Because probably quite a lot of us who use CentOS 8 need to make a switch at the end of the year. It would be very nice if we could just switch with 1 ssh command to Rocky Linux and Plesk would continue working without any problems.

Plesk-team ... some information please? Are you discussing this issue? And if so, what is the current status?

 

[Dave W]

Im sure they are discussing it, and Im sure they will make a decision in time. Why not go with CentOS 7 for now? By EOL CentOS7 there should be a definite roadmap for not only Plesk but many other products aswell.

 

[Pleskie]

Im sure they are discussing it, and Im sure they will make a decision in time. Why not go with CentOS 7 for now? By EOL CentOS7 there should be a definite roadmap for not only Plesk but many other products aswell.

Why? CentOS EOL is end of 2024. Why should we be using old software that long?

Why don't we hear anything from Plesk-team? If Plesk-team would say they are unable to get things ready before the end of 2021, THEN CentOS 7 could be a (required) solution, but I'd rather stick to the new CentOS 8 software.