CentOS - Dec 2015 - Version numbering vis a vis CentOS and RHEL

On 7 Dec 2015 23:43, "J Martin Rushton" <martinrushton56 at
btinternet.com>
wrote:
>
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
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> On 07/12/15 22:37, Warren Young wrote:
> > On Dec 7, 2015, at 1:52 PM, Greg Lindahl <lindahl at pbm.com>
wrote:
> >>
> >> On Mon, Dec 07, 2015 at 08:57:01PM +0100, Zdenek Sedlak wrote:
> >>
> >>> AFAIK, the 7(1503) format is used only on the websites, and
> >>> internally CentOS uses 7.1.1503. Do you see this as an issue?
> >>
> >> Yes. It confuses humans. There have been a bunch of examples
> >> given of how it confuses humans. A simple fix for this human
> >> issue is to use 7.1.1503 on the website, here on the mailing
> >> list, etc.
> >
> > And then we?re right back in the same old boat: With every new
> > release, the same old thread will pop up, ?How do I make my servers
> > stay on CentOS 7.1??
> >
> > Give up on the point release idea.  It?s CentOS 7; there is no
> > CentOS 7.1.  The only reason there?s a YYMM part is that it?s a
> > media respin.  Best ignore that wherever practical.
>
> So if we are to give up on the point release does that mean I don't
> have to update my machines until CentOS 8 comes along? ;-)
>
> Seriously though, since I have to build my own repos (air gap) and
> build the images for the diskless machines the point releases are
> important in tracking roughly which version particular nodes are on.
> Running yum update on a regular basis is just not an option.
You should be updating during the lifecycle to each milestone though... To
not do so is to leave yourself open to numerous bugs and attacks.

As it is, as pointed out, you can still check the installed files from the
centos-release package for the upstream it's based on and the YYMM respin
date...

Common configuration management systems (you should be using one of these
given you say you have many systems) will also report the relevant details
correctly.

On top of this if you are maintaining your own internal air gapped repo you
should be paying attention to announcements which will inform you at these
milestone points...

Given the workflow you state nothing has changed for you with the EL7.X
releases...

On Tue, Dec 8, 2015 at 2:42 AM, James Hogarth <james.hogarth at gmail.com>
wrote:
> On 7 Dec 2015 23:43, "J Martin Rushton" <martinrushton56 at
btinternet.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> > Hash: SHA1
> >
> > On 07/12/15 22:37, Warren Young wrote:
> > > On Dec 7, 2015, at 1:52 PM, Greg Lindahl <lindahl at
pbm.com> wrote:
> > >>
> > >> On Mon, Dec 07, 2015 at 08:57:01PM +0100, Zdenek Sedlak
wrote:
> > >>
> > >>> AFAIK, the 7(1503) format is used only on the websites,
and
> > >>> internally CentOS uses 7.1.1503. Do you see this as an
issue?
> > >>
> > >> Yes. It confuses humans. There have been a bunch of examples
> > >> given of how it confuses humans. A simple fix for this human
> > >> issue is to use 7.1.1503 on the website, here on the mailing
> > >> list, etc.
> > >
> > > And then we?re right back in the same old boat: With every new
> > > release, the same old thread will pop up, ?How do I make my
servers
> > > stay on CentOS 7.1??
> > >
> > > Give up on the point release idea.  It?s CentOS 7; there is no
> > > CentOS 7.1.  The only reason there?s a YYMM part is that it?s a
> > > media respin.  Best ignore that wherever practical.
> >
> > So if we are to give up on the point release does that mean I
don't
> > have to update my machines until CentOS 8 comes along? ;-)
> >
> > Seriously though, since I have to build my own repos (air gap) and
> > build the images for the diskless machines the point releases are
> > important in tracking roughly which version particular nodes are on.
> > Running yum update on a regular basis is just not an option.
>
> You should be updating during the lifecycle to each milestone though... To
> not do so is to leave yourself open to numerous bugs and attacks.
>
> As it is, as pointed out, you can still check the installed files from the
> centos-release package for the upstream it's based on and the YYMM
respin
> date...
>
> Common configuration management systems (you should be using one of these
> given you say you have many systems) will also report the relevant details
> correctly.
>
> On top of this if you are maintaining your own internal air gapped repo you
> should be paying attention to announcements which will inform you at these
> milestone points...
>
> Given the workflow you state nothing has changed for you with the EL7.X
> releases...
>
>
What I want to know is, why is CentOS doing things differently than RedHat?
Who made this decision, and was there any consideration given to making
such a highly visible departure? When did CentOS decide to fork away from
RHEL? It doesn't matter if this is truly the case, or not. Perception is
reality here; CentOS is now no longer "the same" as RHEL and this
turns it
into a whole different, new, distro of Linux. That affects things like
software certification, hardware support, security certification, etc. etc.
It is now a stupendous burden on those of us who chose to implement it
because it was "the same" as RHEL.

Was this an edict resulting from the RedHat acquisition of CentOS?

I can hear people saying, "Well, why don't you just use RedHat
then?" I
probably will have to now. But, we chose CentOS because it *was* RHEL, but
it gave us more control (the ease of air-gapped repositories is a good
example).

I just think this whole thing was a highly unnecessary, and bad idea. And
it has a lot of really serious repercussions that nobody seems to have
thought of before plowing ahead.

And, obviously, that angers me. I am asking for more than just consistency
between the web site and /etc/centos-release, I am asking that, starting
with RHEL 7.3, that CentOS stop using YYMM in its version numbers
completely.



-- 
Matt Phelps
System Administrator, Computation Facility
Harvard - Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
mphelps at cfa.harvard.edu, http://www.cfa.harvard.edu

On Tue, Dec 08, 2015 at 08:45:10AM -0500, Phelps, Matthew
wrote:
> What I want to know is, why is CentOS doing things differently than RedHat?
> Who made this decision, and was there any consideration given to making
> such a highly visible departure? When did CentOS decide to fork away from
> RHEL? It doesn't matter if this is truly the case, or not. Perception
is
> reality here; CentOS is now no longer "the same" as RHEL and this
turns it
> into a whole different, new, distro of Linux. That affects things like
> software certification, hardware support, security certification, etc. etc.
> It is now a stupendous burden on those of us who chose to implement it
> because it was "the same" as RHEL.
CentOS has always been different than Red Hat Enterprise Linux,
because Red Hat is willing to support older point releases of RHEL
(for a price), while CentOS only supports the latest release.  You
might be running RHEL 7.1 Extended Update Support for another year or
so, while the rest of the world has updated to RHEL 7.2.
(see https://access.redhat.com/support/policy/updates/errata)

I believe (although I was not involved with the choice) the new naming
scheme reflects a need to advertise to the end user that there is only
one supported release of each major version of CentOS, with a regular
release of installation medium that coincides with the feature
updates that come out with each RHEL point release.

So often, I see people come on mailing lists and the IRC channels
saying "I'm running CentOS 6.1 and I can't get PHP to work"
and we
have to ask why they aren't running a supported release of CentOS 6.
A lot of people seem genuinely surprised that you can't just keep
running some point release of CentOS and expect any kind of support.

I'll admit, the use of 7.2.1511 is *helpful* because then I know what
upstream version of RHEL it is based on, however, I'm also using RHEL7
along side CentOS7.  But in terms of naming the install medium, it
makes sense to just put a monotonically increasing number that
reflects a timestamp.

This is just my opinion, as both someone who tries to be helpful to
CentOS users, as well as a sysadmin in a large institution.

-- 
Jonathan Billings <billings at negate.org>