What to do after end of life?

[landoncz]

Hey all, I have a Fedora 6 web server, it doesn't see heavy duty action or anything like that, just a light web server. It has been really great thus far, and I keep up with all the updates pretty regularly (like once a month). My question is this, with the EOL coming for Fedora 6 very soon, what should I do with this server? Is it worth taking the risk of taking it down for a few hours to try and upgrade it to a newer version? Or, is there a way to still keep up with any really critical security updates for it even after EOL? Thanks for the help.

[FriedChips]

umm. there used to be a legacy support repository but I believe it has since been taken down. For a server I would recommend using something like CentOS so you would have support for 5 years or so. You could download the whole repositories you are using now and make local repositories for yourself, but as far as updates go I think you are pretty much SOL.

[JN4OldSchool]

agreed with Friedchips but in the meantime, I think I would leave FC6 up till an opportune time came to swap it out. If you are secure behind a firewall and have selinux going you shouldnt have any problems. I ran an FC4 install over a year and a half without updating and it just kept plugging along. But yeah, as soon as I could I would swap out for centos or debian or something a little longerlasting.

[Dan]

Morning Landon.

Please don't feel I'm being flippant here. This is a valid question.

Just because the version you are using has reached update support end of life doesn't mean it automatically breaks. If it is doing its job now, without any problems, and you are content with it's service, why be in any rush to change at all?

Yes, you could go through the effort of dumping FC6 now, and going to CentOS. But ... why? CentOS is built on RHEL which was built out of FC6. Just monitor the CentOS updates, and evaluate them according to need. If it looks like a serious issue, then consider changing, if not, FC6 ain't broken! Just a little long in the tooth. And it's only that due to the near maniacal release rate of fedora.

Hope it helps.


Dan

[landoncz]

Great, thanks guys for the fast responses!

@ FriedChips: This was supposed to be a "test" server and wasn't going to be up for too long, so I just put Fedora 6 on it because it was quickest at the time. The project was a success and here we are today nearing EOL. I use CentOS or pay for RHEL in most normal circumstances.

@ JN4OldSchool: Thanks, yeah I think it is pretty well secured, and the OS and box itself have been great, no glitches or anything... yet. It doesn't do email, FTP, Samba, anything like that, basically just HTTP, HTTPS, and SSH, so I think it's fairly secure.

@TangledWeb: Thanks Dan! I appreciate the good advice! You are right, it has done great so far, and has been rock solid up until now, no reason to incur downtime replacing it until the need really arises. I think I will probably do as you advise, like I said, it's been a great server. I guess I'll probably just monitor the advisories and wait until it starts acting a little odd, maybe by then I can get and configure a new server to do a quick swap over or something...

Thanks to all you guys for the help/suggestions!

[Dan]

You're welcome Landon. Have a great day!


Dan