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One challenge faced by many system administrators these days is what to do with legacy OS systems. At some point, known as the system end of life, a system may still run smoothly, but Red Hat no longer produces security or bug fix updates for the product.
Red Hat Linux systems have enjoyed a very lengthy support term, but that term is running short. Table 3-3 shows the recent Red Hat Linux releases, and their respective end of life.
|
Red Hat Linux Release |
End-of-Life Date |
|---|---|
|
Red Hat Linux 7.1 |
December 31, 2003 |
|
Red Hat Linux 7.2 |
December 31, 2003 |
|
Red Hat Linux 7.3 |
December 31, 2003 |
|
Red Hat Linux 8.0 |
December 31, 2003 |
|
Red Hat Linux 9 |
April 30, 2004 |
Some systems will not be hurt by the drop in support, as they are used only internally, have no Internet access, and continue to run smoothly. Other systems, however, rely heavily on Red Hat support as they are public-facing, have heavy usage, and continue to need bug fixes for the software used.
The alternatives for a system administrator faced with this dilemma include upgrading the product to a more recent offering, leaving the system as is for as long as possible, or using a third-party updating service. As of this writing, there are two choices for third-party updates: the free and open Fedora Legacy Project, and the pay service provided by Progeny Linux Systems.
The Fedora Legacy Project can be found at www.fedoralegacy.org. The following description is from the home page of the Project:
The Fedora Legacy Project is a community-supported open source project. It is not a supported project of Red Hat, Inc. although Red Hat, Inc. does provide some support services for it.
The goal of The Fedora Legacy Project is to work with the Linux community to provide security and critical bug fix errata packages for select End of Life Red Hat Linux and Fedora Core distributions. This will allow for a longer effective life for those releases.
Through a community effort, the Fedora Legacy Project keeps track of the software that is contained in certain end-of-life Red Hat products. Currently, the Fedora Legacy Project supports Red Hat Linux 7.2, 7.3, and 8.0. According to its website, the Project plans on supporting Red Hat Linux 9 when it goes end of life, as well as extending the life of the Fedora Core releases.
The Project does all of its development and communication through open media channels. Two public mailing lists are located at www.red hat.com/mailman /listinfo/fedora -legacy-list/ and www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-legacy-announce. The Fedora Legacy List is for general discussions about the Fedora Legacy Project, as well as development discussions and test update announcements. The Fedora Legacy Announce List is a read-only (no posting by members is allowed) mailing list used to announce updates as they become available. The Project also has an IRC (Internet Relay Chat) channel where developers and end users can discuss issues and progress of package releases. Their channel is #fedora-legacy and it can be found on the Freenode IRC network (www.freenode.org/).
Currently, the Fedora Legacy Project supports package delivery methods of http, yum, and apt-get.
Progeny Linux Systems provides a pay service called the Progeny Transition Service. The Progeny Transition Service offers software updates for Red Hat Linux 7.2, 7.3, and 8.0, with support for Red Hat Linux 9 scheduled to start early May 2004. The service is designed to provide a flexible migration path for Red Hat Linux systems.
Progeny's service fee is $5 per month, per system, or a flat fee of $2500 per month for unlimited machines. The minimal contract length is currently 6 months.
The Transition Service exists to help customers who are in the process of transitioning from their legacy Red Hat systems to a supported platform. Currently, the Progeny Transition Service supports package delivery methods of http, and Novell's Ximian Red Carpet Enterprise version 2.0.
More information about Progeny Transition Service can be found on its website at http://transition.progeny.com/.
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