CentOS 7 migration or..?

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Blodangb
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CentOS 7 migration or..?

Post by Blodangb » 2023/04/25 23:04:43

Hi all,

As we know CentOS 7 will be EOL in june the 24th. I currently have 7.9 core installed in my network as a jumpserver, however because of the EOL and other security risks i was wondering what my best option would be. Therefore i would like to have your guys opinion on this. Should i:

- Migrate to the latest centos version c9s? (Complete reinstall?)

- something else?

Keep in my mind that the configuration and everything must be the same whenever i migrate. Thanks guys!!

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TrevorH
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Re: CentOS 7 migration or..?

Post by TrevorH » 2023/04/25 23:21:56

IMO Stream of any release is too unstable to be of use. It's fine as a testbed for what might come down the pipe in the next point release of RHEL but for running work that you depend on, no. So that leaves "something else". I cannot really tell much difference between Alma/Rocky or OEL so I'd just pick one and move to it.

There is no upgrade from one major version (7) to another (8 or 9) so whatever you pick you will need to reinstall the system, reinstall your apps, restore your data and configs and go from there.There may be configuration changes going from 7 to 9 as various components may have changed versions or bneen replaced - for example, iptables in 7 is replaced by nftables in 9 though there is an iptables compat wrapper that seems to (mostly) work. If your intended use is just as a jump host then you probably don't actually have much installed that needs configuration anyway. And if you haven't already got your configs in a configuration management program like ansible/puppet/chef then now might be a good time to start doing so to make the move even easier next time round.
The future appears to be RHEL or Debian. I think I'm going Debian.
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CentOS 5 and 6 are deadest, do not use them.
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Whoever
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Re: CentOS 7 migration or..?

Post by Whoever » 2023/04/26 02:26:49

Blodangb wrote:
2023/04/25 23:04:43
Hi all,

As we know CentOS 7 will be EOL in june the 24th.
June 24th, 2024: a little over a year from now, not 2 months from now.

I am putting my faith in Rocky Linux. For a small network, you may be able to get free Red Hat licenses, but my earlier experience with Red Hat put me off investigating this route. That assumes you want to stay in the "rpm world". There are other choices in the "deb world" -- choices that include distributions that do support upgrades from one major version to the next.

I will say that I would discourage any current CentOS user from moving to CentOS stream, because it won't have the stability that has been the prime attribute of CentOS, up to and including CentOS 7.

Blodangb
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Re: CentOS 7 migration or..?

Post by Blodangb » 2023/04/26 10:28:48

Thanks guys for the replies.

The virtual machine will only be used as a jump host to get access to the infrastructure of our customers. So the centos machine will not have any use. Just logging in with 2 factor authentication. And the updates will just be simple yum updates and is part of an freeIPA server.

Its just the VM is old and we need an dated replacement without changing the configuration, so my inital thought was to upgrade (but we cant upgrade from 7.9 to streams). Therefore i think an reinstallation with centos 9 stream would be my best bet. What do you guys think. Thanks again for replying, i appreciate the advice!

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TrevorH
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Re: CentOS 7 migration or..?

Post by TrevorH » 2023/04/26 10:33:55

I am not sure that you saw the bit about "Stream is too unstable to use" in the replies you got?

CentOS is no longer what it was - it used to be a plain rebuild of the current version of RHEL with logos and branding replaced. It's now an early pre-release of the next point release of RHEL which means it gets lots of half tested (sometimes appears to be completely UNtested) updates before they get pushed to RHEL. Except for embargoed security updates which RH push to RHEL first and then only as an afterthought to CentOS Stream. One httpd update to fix a bug marked as "Critical" took 71 _days_ to get to Stream after it went to RHEL. A similar critical bug in the Stream 8 kernel took about a month to arrive on Stream after it went to RHEL.

Oh, and another stunning example was when RH pushed an update to gnupg2 for Stream 9 the other week that disabled SHA1 completely. One minor problem with that is that the rpm GPG signing key for all of CentOS 9 uses SHA1 so once this update went on, that was it, no more updates could be done. And you could not back it out easily for the same reason...
The future appears to be RHEL or Debian. I think I'm going Debian.
Info for USB installs on http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/InstallFromUSBkey
CentOS 5 and 6 are deadest, do not use them.
Use the FAQ Luke

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jlehtone
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Re: CentOS 7 migration or..?

Post by jlehtone » 2023/04/26 11:13:32

If you already have VM's, then spawn one more. Install AlmaLinux, Rocky Linux, Oracle Linux, RHEL, etc.
(Note, those are all "like RHEL", just like CentOS is. The CentOS Stream is not on that list; it is not "like RHEL" in this context.)

Then configure the features that you do need on that VM, until it is sufficiently equivalent to the current CentOS 7 VM.

tunk
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Re: CentOS 7 migration or..?

Post by tunk » 2023/04/26 13:25:52

Also remember that RHEL9 (plus clones) has EOL in 2032, and Stream 9 has EOL in ~2027.

Blodangb
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Re: CentOS 7 migration or..?

Post by Blodangb » 2023/04/26 15:08:48

I guess ill migrate to RHEL9 with an developer subscription then. Makes more sense now. Thanks guys

Whoever
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Re: CentOS 7 migration or..?

Post by Whoever » 2023/04/27 03:56:56

Blodangb wrote:
2023/04/26 15:08:48
I guess ill migrate to RHEL9 with an developer subscription then. Makes more sense now. Thanks guys
My experience with Red Hat subscriptions is that they are PITA.

Either go with Rocky or Almalinux or, go with Debian or a derivative. With the adoption of systemd, the distributions are more alike than in the past.

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