Question CentOS is shifting focus from CentOS 8 to CentOS Stream

[klowet]

Hi

CentOS and RedHat announced that the support for CentOS 8 will end at the end of 2021. They are shifting focus from CentOS Linux to CentOS Stream.
At this moment, Plesk isn't supporting CentOS Stream. I'm curious how this shift will be adopted in Plesk.

Announcements:

• CentOS Project shifts focus to CentOS Stream – Blog.CentOS.org
• CentOS Stream: Building an innovative future for enterprise Linux

 

[MitchellvB995]

I totally agree. Here is a Dutch version of the announcement: CentOS gaat zich op Stream-releases en niet meer op rebuilds van RHEL richten.

 

[reachmedia]

What linux distro is Plesk most recommended on for stability and long term?

 

[Paul Hermans]

Plesk will need to test and support the new Centos Stream before the end of 2021, so we can all switch our Centos 8 servers to Stream.

Plesk can you please confirm?

 

[danami]

You can get more details here: FAQ: CentOS Stream Updates

Quote:
If you’re using CentOS Linux in a commercial deployment, we suggest you look at moving to RHEL for the added management technologies, security, and support that are an integral part of the RHEL subscription. Our sales teams can help you identify the appropriate offerings that match your use case.

This doesn't look good

 

[websavers]

Plesk will need to test and support the new Centos Stream before the end of 2021, so we can all switch our Centos 8 servers to Stream.

Plesk can you please confirm?

Yes exactly. At least the conversion seems straightforward as packages probably don't differ significantly at this time: CentOS Stream

root@centos-linux# dnf install centos-release-stream

root@centos-linux# dnf distro-sync

root@centos-stream# cat /etc/centos-release
CentOS Stream release 8

In terms of how CentOS Stream is maintained, it doesn't feel like it should be significantly different from Ubuntu or other faster-moving projects in that we might actually get more updated packages that could be handy, like curl and apache. And since Plesk already runs on other distros like Ubuntu, they must already be accustomed to this model.

That said, it *really* would be good to know if/that Plesk is planning to support CentOS Stream and in particular CentOS 8 to CentOS Stream 8 conversions as it's described above. I would imagine given how many users of Plesk must be using CentOS that they will not have much choice in this...

 

[danami]

Just make sure to not run dnf install centos-release-stream on a Plesk server as that will blow up your OS now.

 

[websavers]

Just make sure to not run dnf install centos-release-stream on a Plesk server as that will blow up your OS now.

Does it? I sure hope it's a smooth transition upon release... it would not be pleasant if we all had to use Plesk migrator to move to a whole new server using Stream once it's released...

 

[SacAutos]

This announcement is particularly irritating for me because, in the last month, I had just completed evacuating all my websites from servers running CentOS 6 to CentOS 8. Now I'm faced with either the prospect of doing yet another migration or betting that Plesk will figure out how to support CentOS stream during the next year. What a short-sighted decision by IBM...

 

[MSZ]

What linux distro is Plesk most recommended on for stability and long term?

I know the CentOS news are still fresh; still would appreciate an assessment from Plesk soon.

By no means I am a professional, but always kept CentOS on my server because it was deemed more secure and stable than e.g. Ubuntu.
On my homeservers (not connected directly to the outside world) I run Ubuntu and am quite happy with it.

Over the past weeks I was considering a change to Ubuntu on all my servers... I guess CentOS just made that decision easier for me.

 

[MitchellvB995]

What linux distro is Plesk most recommended on for stability and long term?

I don't know whether I should choose CentOS 8 now or Ubuntu 20.04 for my new Plesk installation that I want to be up and running for a few years.

 

[MSZ]

Ubuntu 20.04 LTS will get support until 2030...

Ubuntu LTS (LTS = long-term support) versions are supported for 10 years.

 

[MitchellvB995]

Ubuntu 20.04 LTS will get support until 2030...

Ubuntu LTS (LTS = long-term support) versions are supported for 10 years.

Yes, but doesn't it feel 'outdated' in 2024 for example?

 

[Fabix]

Given the imminent death of Centos, many systems engineers will migrate to Oracle Linux. Does Plesk intend to support this operating system closely?

 

[moswak]

this sounds interesting if plesk may also support it.

Announcing Open-sourced & Community-Driven RHEL Fork by CloudLinux

Red Hat just killed CentOS as we know it. In response, CloudLinux plans to release a free, open-sourced, 1:1 binary compatible fork of RHEL® 8.

blog.cloudlinux.com

 

[IgorG]

Guys, please share your opinion here too: https://pt-research.typeform.com/to/mYDBxx56

 

[danami]

Does it? I sure hope it's a smooth transition upon release... it would not be pleasant if we all had to use Plesk migrator to move to a whole new server using Stream once it's released...

Yes Plesk would have to make a lot of changes in order to support Centos stream (but who knows how stable it would be or how much more work it would be for Plesk to maintain?).

Also note the original founder of Centos has already started a fork of Centos 8 called Rocky Linux:

Rocky Linux

An open enterprise operating system, built by the @resforg. - Rocky Linux

github.com

Rocky Linux

Rocky Linux is an open enterprise Operating System designed to be 100% bug-for-bug compatible with Enterprise Linux.

rockylinux.org

Best case might be like what happened when MySQL was sold to Oracle. The original founder forked the code and started the MariaDB that we all use today.

 

[websavers]

In theory, CentOS Stream should really not be that significantly different from CentOS 8 up until the end of 2021. This is because Stream will be just slightly ahead of RHEL, whereas CentOS 8 will be just behind it, but the patches going to each will be the same in the end, just with CentOS 8 getting them slightly slower than Stream, and therefore presumably CentOS 8 will be slightly more stable. The stability differences come from this: in the event an update proves unstable, CentOS 8 will have never seen it, while CentOS Stream might see it (ie: if it's not detected in the pre-Stream beta phases).

If reality reflects that theory then those of us with CentOS 8 Plesk boxes have two choices:

1. Switch to Stream at some point before the new CentOS 8 EOL date in 2021, with the caveat of it *possibly* being less stable long-term.
2. Switch to one of the newly announced projects: CloudLinux's new free OS or Rocky Linux (best case they find a way to merge the two and we get a great open source team mixed with solid financial backing).

And the only things holding up that transition are:

1. Plesk deciding which project to throw their support behind (perhaps they'll support all of the new options?)
2. Testing, lots of testing.

I'm curious @danami what makes you say Plesk would have to make a lot of changes to support CentOS Stream when it really shouldn't be that significantly different from CentOS 8 for the next year.

Though I do agree that Plesk might choose to throw their weight behind Rocky or CloudLinux over Stream if only because their support team might end up with less OS bugs to deal with when supporting Plesk on an RHEL downstream project (CL,Rocky) rather than upstream (Stream).

 

[danami]

I'm curious @danami what makes you say Plesk would have to make a lot of changes to support CentOS Stream when it really shouldn't be that significantly different from CentOS 8 for the next year.

@websavers because this is what happens when you try switching over to Centos 8 stream right now. (I just ran it in a test VM):

[root@test18 ~]# dnf distro-sync
CentOS-Stream - AppStream                                                                                                                                                            1.3 MB/s | 6.3 MB     00:04   
CentOS-Stream - Base                                                                                                                                                                 983 kB/s | 2.3 MB     00:02   
CentOS-Stream - Extras                                                                                                                                                               6.1 kB/s | 7.0 kB     00:01   
Error:
 Problem 1: package plesk-lmlib-0.2.4-1centos.8.201126.1926.x86_64 requires log4cplus >= 1.2.0.1, but none of the providers can be installed
  - log4cplus-1.2.0.1-1centos.8.201126.1926.x86_64 does not belong to a distupgrade repository
  - problem with installed package plesk-lmlib-0.2.4-1centos.8.201126.1926.x86_64
 Problem 2: package plesk-lmlib-0.2.4-1centos.8.201126.1926.x86_64 requires log4cplus >= 1.2.0.1, but none of the providers can be installed
  - cannot install both log4cplus-1.2.0-11.el8.x86_64 and log4cplus-1.2.0.1-1centos.8.201126.1926.x86_64
  - package sw-engine-2.32.0-1centos.8.201126.1926.x86_64 requires liblock_manager.so.2()(64bit), but none of the providers can be installed
  - package sw-engine-2.32.0-1centos.8.201126.1926.x86_64 requires plesk-lmlib >= 0.2.4, but none of the providers can be installed
  - cannot install the best update candidate for package log4cplus-1.2.0.1-1centos.8.201126.1926.x86_64
  - problem with installed package sw-engine-2.32.0-1centos.8.201126.1926.x86_64
(try to add '--allowerasing' to command line to replace conflicting packages or '--skip-broken' to skip uninstallable packages or '--nobest' to use not only best candidate packages)

I'm sure it's possible for them to easily fix but all this OS fragmentation is extremely bad. Every new operating system supported is yet more development time and resources down the drain. Plesk has been trying to shed off all that legacy as per the announcement to drop Onyx support:

Announcing Plesk Onyx Support Policy Update

Plesk has been around for a long time and have successfully navigated things so far so I'm confident they will come up with a good solution.

 

[themew]

After seeing @danami 's attempt with the Plesk errors noted above, I upgraded a server running CentOS 8.3 and the Webmin opensource panel to CentOS 8 stream.

No errors, effortless upgrade, panel works and a Magento 2.4.1 store with Elasticsearch, Percona, Redis, Varnish and PHP 7.4 also fired up and ran without errors.

Based on this test, I agree with @websavers , that Plesk should have no problem supporting CentOS 8 stream.

I expected breakage all the way through the OS update as well as expecting highly configured Magento 2.4.1 to immediately fail. Didn't happen. +1 for RHEL.