0

We have CentOS 6.8 production machines and we had a plan to migrate to CentOS 8.0. Having come to know that CentOS Linux 8 EOL: 2021-12-31, also that, CentOS Project produces two variants: CentOS Linux and CentOS Stream, where CentOS Stream is the upstream, public development branch for RHEL. I wonder, in such a situation, for production machines, where we need a more reliable and stable OS, will CentOS fit in that arena, or do we need to look into other stable alternatives?

I wonder, how the Linux followers, will adapt to this change. Is it the right step to upgrade to a CentOS stream version or should we check for better alternatives? If we need to check for alternatives, then what will be the best stable options in 2022?

Manoj Agarwal
  • 101
  • 2
  • 2
    Updating was never a supported migration path with CentOS, the preferred method was to set up a new server with the new version and then migrate services. Regarding the changes with CentOS Stream you should read [this question and it's answers](https://serverfault.com/questions/1080911/centos-7-end-of-life-in-2024-then-what). – Gerald Schneider Dec 29 '21 at 09:55

1 Answers1

1

CentOS does not support in-place upgrade, plus CentOS 6 is a bit too old for it, iirc it's upstart-based not systemd, so quite different than 7.x or 8.x.

However, AlmaLinux does provide a tool Elevate/leapp to do in-place upgrade from CentOS 7 to any free RHEL-clones and not just AlmaLinux [1], it also works only on CentOS repos, so you should disable any 3rd party repos.

Personally, I haven't used it, as migrating is much more safer, since it allows rollback in case of issues with the new OS.

Another benefit of migrating is to test the disaster recovery plan (ie. deploying new server / restoring from backups / etc...)

[1] https://almalinux.org/elevate

Otto
  • 106
  • 1