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I have a hosting company that has setup a new server for me, but I noticed it was running RedHat 4.4 which I am worried about being such an old version. When I inquired about running an old version, they were reluctant to upgrade the OS.

I am wondering if I am being paranoid about running an old version of RedHat or if i am correct in asking for RedHat 6 to be installed to address improvements, security + bugs issues etc.

Edit: To avoid any confusion, here is the full version:

cat /etc/redhat-release

Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES release 4 (Nahant Update 4)

Community
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bmaynard
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5 Answers5

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No, I wouldn't run RHEL 4.4 on a new server unless you have a specific need for RHEL4, in which case I'd run RHEL4.9.

  • There are remotely-exploitable vulnerabilities in RHEL4.4
  • You will have dependency problems if you want to install any modern software on RHEL4.

I'd go for RHEL6. It isn't that new.

Mark Wagner
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According to RedHat's Lifecycle Document RHEL 4.4 (and I'm assuming RHEL, and not RedHat as Plain Redhat is DECADES old and out of support now) just left Phase 2, and will receive security updates and bug fixes till Feb 2012. However if I was installing a new server I would push for 5.x.

HOWEVER, at a minimum get them to get to the latests SP.

Given a choice, i would find a different provider. I can understand them not being ready to roll out 6, but 5 really is a must at this point. It just shows that they don't seem to have any interest in keeping current.

Zypher
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RedHat 6 is still fairly new, so i can somewhat understand them not jumping to it yet, HOWEVER, i dont really see a reason they're not on redhat 5.

grufftech
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Security updates and bug fixes are backported to older major versions, so I'd look at updating to 4.9 for now if possible (after sufficient testing, of course).

Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams
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No, I wouldn't run RHEL4 on a new server as it would become EOL fairly shortly. I would put RHEL5 at the very least, though RHEL6 would be a better choice to give a longer life cycle. By going with RHEL4 there is the situation that you'll either need to perform an upgrade to RHEL5 or newer soon or run without any security patching as soon as RedHat EOLs that version. Also as mentioned RHEL4 is quite old by this point so you're liable to run into issue of needing newer versions of software that would be available in a newer release.

Jeremy Bouse
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  • You'd be really hard-pressed to find a commercial hosting company (besides a mom-and-pop) that will actually support RHEL 6 right now, though. – jgoldschrafe May 13 '11 at 02:49