Centos 8 Questions

[Greg M]

Hello,

Looking for some info please.

Q1. What is the most current ETA for a version of cPanel that supports centos 8? even an experimental one. (the company have a Centos 6 VPS waiting to be decommissioned but given that cPanel are supposed to support centos 8 in 2020 it seems more logical to hold out and go directly to a centos 8 VPS)

Also I have my own dedicated server running Centos 7. Unlike a VPS it's not as easy (or cheap) to "spin up another" I would likely test and try an in place upgrade. I came across a tecmint article that covered upgrading centos 7 to centos 8 (linked below) I'm also fully aware that this is not an officially supported upgrade, its just an example as the steps are pretty simple. So I am curious what would happen if:

How to Upgrade CentOS 7 to CentOS 8 Linux

The article shows how to upgrade CentOS 7 to CentOS 8.5. The steps described herein do not depict the official upgrade and shouldn't be applied to production.

www.tecmint.com

Q2- after cPanel release support for Centos 8, would following the steps in the tecmint article above likely break cpanel (under the assumption the article doesnt break centos itself) ? (I understand I probably can't have a definite answer, educated guess is fine though)

Q3 - when centos 8 support is released will cpanel officially support an OS change from 7 to 8 without reinstall? (e.g. not detect the OS has changed and throw up a error or prevent use etc)

(the following questions more depend on an upgrade being possible/supported)
3.1 - If so would there be an interface or script to initiate / manage this or would it be more a case of cPanel detecting a change in things like as an example, OS and kernel ver change and YUM being swapped with DNF and updating its own references accordingly?

3.2 if there is no interface or native way to perform an upgrade, would anyone from cPanel be able to write a guide or add a documentation section of how to upgrade to centos 8? Of course add a disclaimer that it may break things if need be.


Q4 - if no upgrades are supported at all (and results in breaking the system meaning setting up a new server is required) will the released version of cPanel on a Centos 8 Server be able to run the importer and migrate everything from the old server as easily as it would from one Centos 7 to another Centos 7?


Thanks

 

[bellwood]

The current status of CentOS 8 support can be tracked here:

https://features.cpanel.net/topic/support-for-rhel-8

A pre-production release is potentially coming in Q3 2020.

To some of your questions, cPanel ONLY supports being installed on a fresh operating system.

Trying to dist upgrade from 7 -> 8 is likely to introduce changes that cPanel cannot account for and would not support.

Your best option to mitigate downtime would be to:

-export your cPanel config
-backup all your accounts remotely
-install over with CentOS 8
-install cpanel from your current config

Customize Your Installation | cPanel & WHM Documentation

This document describes how to customize your cPanel & WHM installation.

docs.cpanel.net

-re-import your accounts

You may want to open a ticket with cPanel, let them now what you are trying to accomplish and see if they can create a more detailed MOP for you.

This of course wouldn't take into account any changes you've made outside of cPanel (maldet, custom scripts, etc) I always find it's prudent to keep detailed notes of server administration as changes are made so you can more easily and readily rebuild or reference as needed.

Edit:

This article would be a good read/reference as well:

How to Move All cPanel Accounts from One Server to Another | cPanel & WHM Documentation

This tutorial explains how to migrate your cPanel accounts, SSL certificates, and main server IP address from one server to another. Typically, you would do this when you need to replace your server.

docs.cpanel.net

 

[cPanelLauren]

@bellwood many thanks for that detailed and knowledgeable response.

To update a bit - we're looking at the earliest for CentOS 8 being Q4 of this year but I did get the news that the EasyApache portion of this is complete which is a huge part of getting this done.

From what I understand RHEL supports an in-place upgrade but CentOS does not. There's a lengthy discussion on this here: CentOS 7 to CentOS 8 upgrade script - CentOS

Because there's no supported upgrade path without migration, as far as I am aware we will not be supporting an upgrade done in this manner.

 

[Greg M]

The current status of CentOS 8 support can be tracked here:

https://features.cpanel.net/topic/support-for-rhel-8

A pre-production release is potentially coming in Q3 2020.

To some of your questions, cPanel ONLY supports being installed on a fresh operating system.

I asked for current status because that feature thread is locked and cPanel have the horrible habit of abandoning these feature requests after they are locked and not updating their status properly. Also given the fact that cPanel stopped supporting centos 6 before they supported centos 8 which was very stupid decision. I need to know how soon I can install centos 8 with cpanel on a fresh machine.


Yes. Officially cpanel only supports installation on a fresh system, as with most control panels and the like. However we all know it can easily be installed on existing system if we chose to.

Trying to dist upgrade from 7 -> 8 is likely to introduce changes that cPanel cannot account for and would not support.

Not particularly no. If they do it correctly vs all the services/packages they use then they could easily manage what needs to be changed. It's a case of testing and noting whats changed. It could be a "experimental" upgrade with a breakage disclaimer.

Your best option to mitigate downtime would be to:

-export your cPanel config
-backup all your accounts remotely
-install over with CentOS 8
-install cpanel from your current config

Customize Your Installation | cPanel & WHM Documentation

This document describes how to customize your cPanel & WHM installation.

docs.cpanel.net

-re-import your accounts

You may want to open a ticket with cPanel, let them now what you are trying to accomplish and see if they can create a more detailed MOP for you.

This of course wouldn't take into account any changes you've made outside of cPanel (maldet, custom scripts, etc) I always find it's prudent to keep detailed notes of server administration as changes are made so you can more easily and readily rebuild or reference as needed.

I am aware of how you fresh install and restore account backups from an old server, this wasn't my question. I was asking if the process will be fully supported from centos 6 & 7 to centos 8. I.e. When we have our Centos 8 VPS set up. Can all my WHM settings / accounts be fully imported to the new one. OR will there be incompatibilities and such that will force me to create the accounts manually and import things in stages like public_html dirs, databases etc. If I'm being forced to set up a full new VPS I want to be reassured the cPanel migration/transfer tools to work flawlessly.

However for my own dedicated machine I cannot afford to have down time like that and there are a number of custom scripts and such set up. I do have notes and things on the custom scripts and such but ultimately I cannot afford a second personal server and I cannot afford the downtime it would require to reinstall a new OS over it and given that cPanel now costs more than my server itself I would expect better features like support for OS upgrades, or something like being able to download a single archive from the server that contains everything to set up your cpanel settings and accounts on a brand new server. But I wont continue to comment on the ridiculous price hike or lack of cheaper plans for dedicated machines with fewer accounts, or the fact that nothing has changed for users other than cost coz I don't want this thread locked, I need answers and info

@bellwood many thanks for that detailed and knowledgeable response.

To update a bit - we're looking at the earliest for CentOS 8 being Q4 of this year but I did get the news that the EasyApache portion of this is complete which is a huge part of getting this done.

From what I understand RHEL supports an in-place upgrade but CentOS does not. There's a lengthy discussion on this here: CentOS 7 to CentOS 8 upgrade script - CentOS

Because there's no supported upgrade path without migration, as far as I am aware we will not be supporting an upgrade done in this manner.

Thanks Lauren,


Can we have access to a public roadmap, trello or something where we can stay up to date with this? The feature request is locked and cPanel are not the best at providing detailed information of extremely urgent problems such as Centos 8 support. Many of us have been screwed over the the EOL of centos 6 and lack of support for 8. Transparency and frequent updates are required here. This is mission critical.

Q4 is a better indicator but at this stage we need more details. - Please


Correct RHEL supports upgrades and as far as I can tell the only reason Centos doesnt is because RHEL is paid for - something about the CentOS team won't look at it unless someone from the community offers to repackage the leapp script, I would try myself but that is beyond me. So really yes an upgrade from centos 7 to 8 should be doable by cPanel. For the most part it I believe would mostly follow the same path as the RHEL upgrade process. It seems the main thing is getting their upgrade tool packaged up for CentOS There are also numerous threads out there about upgrading to 8. Yes officially they say no on the CentOS site but in this day and age it really is about time that Server OS can be upgraded in place.

Another possibility would maybe be a whm/Cpanel script that could imitate an upgrade: It saves / backs up all your cpanel and whm data. (You provide a drive or external storage location for this) after all relevant info is captured, a script wipes the main drive, reinstalls the OS and them imports your cPanel/WHM data. This means all we would need to take care of manually is custom scripts and such as all your general cpanel info and settings etc would have been restored.

as an FYI there are lots of calls in the community for supported in place upgrades. We dont all have corporate level set ups, many are smaller business or individuals who don't have time/budget to duplicate their hosting infrastructure and create new versions etc. If cPanel make the upgrade process work it would be a very unique feature that would be grabbed onto by many many people and again you could still add an experimental tag and a big warning about how it will probably break your sh*t. But ultimately if cPanel became the Control panel that supports OS version upgrades that would be something !


If cPanel choose not to support this and I go ahead and do an upgrade to centos 8 anyway I want to make sure that you won't have something coded in to stop me using cPanel/WHM after the fact?


Thanks

 

[sherylbro]

I asked for current status because that feature thread is locked and cPanel have the horrible habit of abandoning these feature requests after they are locked and not updating their status properly. Also given the fact that cPanel stopped supporting centos 6 before they supported centos 8 which was very stupid decision. I need to know how soon I can install centos 8 with cpanel on a fresh machine.


Yes. Officially cpanel only supports installation on a fresh system, as with most control panels and the like. However we all know it can easily be installed on existing system if we chose to.





Not particularly no. If they do it correctly vs all the services/packages they use then they could easily manage what needs to be changed. It's a case of testing and noting whats changed. It could be a "experimental" upgrade with a breakage disclaimer.




I am aware of how you fresh install and restore account backups from an old server, this wasn't my question. I was asking if the process will be fully supported from centos 6 & 7 to centos 8. I.e. When we have our Centos 8 VPS set up. Can all my WHM settings / accounts be fully imported to the new one. OR will there be incompatibilities and such that will force me to create the accounts manually and import things in stages like public_html dirs, appvalley databases etc. If I'm being forced to set up a full new VPS I want to be reassured the cPanel migration/transfer tools to work flawlessly.

However for my own dedicated machine I cannot afford to have down time like that and there are a number of custom scripts and such set up. I do have notes and things on the custom scripts and such but ultimately I cannot afford a second personal server and I cannot afford the downtime it would require to reinstall a new OS over it and given that cPanel now costs more than my server itself I would expect better features like support for OS upgrades, or something like being able to download a single archive from the server that contains everything to set up your cpanel settings and accounts on a brand new server. But I wont continue to comment on the ridiculous price hike or lack of cheaper plans for dedicated machines with fewer accounts, or the fact that nothing has changed for users other than cost coz I don't want this thread locked, I need answers and info






Thanks Lauren,


Can we have access to a public roadmap, trello or something where we can stay up to date with this? The feature request is locked and cPanel are not the best at providing detailed information of extremely urgent problems such as Centos 8 support. Many of us have been screwed over the the EOL of centos 6 and lack of support for 8. Transparency and frequent updates are required here. This is mission critical.

Q4 is a better indicator but at this stage we need more details. - Please


Correct RHEL supports upgrades and as far as I can tell the only reason Centos doesnt is because RHEL is paid for - something about the CentOS team won't look at it unless someone from the community offers to repackage the leapp script, I would try myself but that is beyond me. So really yes an upgrade from centos 7 to 8 should be doable by cPanel. For the most part it I believe would mostly follow the same path as the RHEL upgrade process. It seems the main thing is getting their upgrade tool packaged up for CentOS There are also numerous threads out there about upgrading to 8. Yes officially they say no on the CentOS site but in this day and age it really is about time that Server OS can be upgraded in place.

Another possibility would maybe be a whm/Cpanel script that could imitate an upgrade: It saves / backs up all your cpanel and whm data. (You provide a drive or external storage location for this) after all relevant info is captured, a script wipes the main drive, reinstalls the OS and them imports your cPanel/WHM data. This means all we would need to take care of manually is custom scripts and such as all your general cpanel info and settings etc would have been restored.

as an FYI there are lots of calls in the community for supported in place upgrades. We dont all have corporate level set ups, many are smaller business or individuals who don't have time/budget to duplicate their hosting infrastructure and create new versions etc. If cPanel make the upgrade process work it would be a very unique feature that would be grabbed onto by many many people and again you could still add an experimental tag and a big warning about how it will probably break your sh*t. But ultimately if cPanel became the Control panel that supports OS version upgrades that would be something !


If cPanel choose not to support this and I go ahead and do an upgrade to centos 8 anyway I want to make sure that you won't have something coded in to stop me using cPanel/WHM after the fact?


Thanks

Hello Greg M, Your questions most important for me and I have got some ideas.

Thank you so much for this...

 

[cool_recep]

To update a bit - we're looking at the earliest for CentOS 8 being Q4 of this year but I did get the news that the EasyApache portion of this is complete which is a huge part of getting this done.

This was mid Q3. Now it's Q4... Two months later, it will be a year since CentOS 8s' release. I have built a new server and waiting for Centos 8 support. Started growing roots...

 

[cool_recep]

What does v90 bring to the table? Really? Nothing. No Centos 8 support, No MariaDB 10.4/10.5 support. Waited this long and nothing worthy. I really wonder what are you doing there. It has been 1.5 year since no major MariaDB update. Everything is moving at turtle speed!

 

[cPanelLauren]

This was mid Q3. Now it's Q4... Two months later, it will be a year since CentOS 8s' release. I have built a new server and waiting for Centos 8 support. Started growing roots...

The last response I made here was less than a month ago. We're still looking at Q4 for this. I don't have any more updates to provide than what was already given.

What does v90 bring to the table? Really? Nothing. No Centos 8 support, No MariaDB 10.4/10.5 support. Waited this long and nothing worthy. I really wonder what are you doing there. It has been 1.5 year since no major MariaDB update. Everything is moving at turtle speed!

While the changes made and features introduced may not have been of value to you, they were valuable to others and necessary. It's not always easy to relay changes made to prepare for something else's implementation. While I do understand your frustration I there isn't anything that can be done at this juncture to facilitate making this process move more quickly.

Can we have access to a public roadmap, trello or something where we can stay up to date with this? The feature request is locked and cPanel are not the best at providing detailed information of extremely urgent problems such as Centos 8 support. Many of us have been screwed over the the EOL of centos 6 and lack of support for 8. Transparency and frequent updates are required here. This is mission critical.

We've been announcing the end of CentOS 6 support for a year now. We ramped up these efforts in the last 6 months in preparation for it's EoL status. With the understanding that we were going to have to push CentOS 8 support we did make some changes to our normal policies you're able to remain on stable using CentOS 6 or update on CloudLinux to the release version of cPanel & WHM. The stable version of cPanel receives updates and security fixes for a year. There is no public roadmap, that is available we use an internal JIRA implementation and it is and always has been non-shareable.

as an FYI there are lots of calls in the community for supported in place upgrades. We dont all have corporate level set ups, many are smaller business or individuals who don't have time/budget to duplicate their hosting infrastructure and create new versions etc. If cPanel make the upgrade process work it would be a very unique feature that would be grabbed onto by many many people and again you could still add an experimental tag and a big warning about how it will probably break your sh*t. But ultimately if cPanel became the Control panel that supports OS version upgrades that would be something !

I don't personally think it's a bad idea at all, in fact I think it would expedite upgrades and resolve a lot of the headache associated with updating your OS. I'd suggest opening a feature request. Our product owners are now running the feature request site which should (when this new system gets rolling) allow for more transparency and information on where we're going.

If cPanel choose not to support this and I go ahead and do an upgrade to centos 8 anyway I want to make sure that you won't have something coded in to stop me using cPanel/WHM after the fact?

I wouldn't ever give you a definitive no to this but I cannot see this happening. Understanding the product and the issues we want to solve it would be extremely unlikely to implement something like this. Now what the issue you're going to run into if you do this prior to cPanel support for CentOS 8 is an extremely unpredictable and most likely malfunctioning cPanel installation.

 

[Greg M]

Hi Lauren, Thanks for the reply again

We've been announcing the end of CentOS 6 support for a year now. We ramped up these efforts in the last 6 months in preparation for it's EoL status. With the understanding that we were going to have to push CentOS 8 support we did make some changes to our normal policies you're able to remain on stable using CentOS 6 or update on CloudLinux to the release version of cPanel & WHM. The stable version of cPanel receives updates and security fixes for a year. There is no public roadmap, that is available we use an internal JIRA implementation and it is and always has been non-shareable.

I know that EOL of 6 was advertised and I did indeed notice it, but like many we were expecting Centos 8 support I think originally early 2020 which meant that we had time to skip 7 and migrate to 8. For our VPS in question this was simple enough as we were going to switch over to a new host (likely AWS or similar) so that one is a full move from old 6 VPS to a new 8 VPS when its released. I have switched the VPS to the LTS tier but still as with many I don't want to run 6 for much longer. I appreciate the benefits of Cloudlinux but there is no budget for this.

I don't personally think it's a bad idea at all, in fact I think it would expedite upgrades and resolve a lot of the headache associated with updating your OS. I'd suggest opening a feature request. Our product owners are now running the feature request site which should (when this new system gets rolling) allow for more transparency and information on where we're going.

I will get round to making a request, problem I find is that the requests site isn't very well advertised and getting enough votes for the idea to be picked up seems to take years. Would be good to have a link to the requests site somewhere in WHM to attract more users?

Aside from that, I feel like this would be a feature that many people would find handy especially if it is kept up to date to support upgrades for various versions, e.g. 6 to 7, 7 to 8, 8 to 9 when the time comes. Again I'm aware custom changes will not be supported but that's something the user/admin should be able to solve themselves (e.g. uninstalling old versions - perform upgrade - reinstall new versions of custom scripts etc.) Of course there should be a big warning about the risks involved and to take a backup but ultimately like you said it could remove alot of the headache especially for the smaller companies or individuals that can't afford to throw up new servers here and there

I wouldn't ever give you a definitive no to this but I cannot see this happening. Understanding the product and the issues we want to solve it would be extremely unlikely to implement something like this. Now what the issue you're going to run into if you do this prior to cPanel support for CentOS 8 is an extremely unpredictable and most likely malfunctioning cPanel installation.

I understand there is no guarantee just wanted to make sure it's not planned to be actively blocked. I understand I may run into issues but luckily the Dedicated machine is Centos 7 so I do have more time to research upgrades before EOL, I also take thorough backups of the full file system so I can always revert in the event I screw it up or suffer critical drive failure! Also just to clarify for the dedicated machine I am not planning any kind of migration to centos 8 before cpanel support it. My dedicated server related questions are about Centos 8 after cPanel support it.


thanks

 

[cPanelLauren]

I will get round to making a request, problem I find is that the requests site isn't very well advertised and getting enough votes for the idea to be picked up seems to take years. Would be good to have a link to the requests site somewhere in WHM to attract more users?

Aside from that, I feel like this would be a feature that many people would find handy especially if it is kept up to date to support upgrades for various versions, e.g. 6 to 7, 7 to 8, 8 to 9 when the time comes. Again I'm aware custom changes will not be supported but that's something the user/admin should be able to solve themselves (e.g. uninstalling old versions - perform upgrade - reinstall new versions of custom scripts etc.) Of course there should be a big warning about the risks involved and to take a backup but ultimately like you said it could remove alot of the headache especially for the smaller companies or individuals that can't afford to throw up new servers here and there

I noted the change in ownership for the feature request site because of opinions such as yours, it really hasn't been well utilized in the past and the hope is with the change they made as they work out this new system all feature requests will be addressed with a definitive yes/no answer. But ultimately, I fully agree with you that the idea is a great one but as much as I wish I could, I can't make that happen, it'd have to be done through the correct channel. I can bring it up to someone but that would not get the internal visibility the feature request would.

 

[goodmove]

The change log for version 90 must be one of the shortest ever for a new release. IMHO, there is a chance that the programming team is now fully dedicated to getting Centos 8 support out in 92. As to in-place upgrading from Centos 7 to Centos 8, i would expect this to happen in 2021 / 22 as Centos 8 matures.

 

[lorio]

The last response I made here was less than a month ago. We're still looking at Q4 for this.

Just to verfiy what Q4 means. In US business terms Q4 is from 1st July till 30th Sept. , right? To interpret Q4 as the last thee months of the year is more common. That's why I'm pointing that out.

 

[cPanelLauren]

Just to verfiy what Q4 means. In US business terms Q4 is from 1st July till 30th Sept. , right? To interpret Q4 as the last thee months of the year is more common. That's why I'm pointing that out.

This is a standard yearly quarter - so Q4 would indicate the last 3 months of the year.

Q1 2020: January 1 - March 31
Q2 2020: April 1 - June 30
Q3 2020: July 1 - September 30
Q4 2020: October 1 - December 31

What I believe you're referring to are non-standard quarters used in finance where a company is gauging fiscal quarters but their fiscal year does not align with the calendar year. A lot of times these are used to gauge highly seasonal revenue streams

Q1: October, November, December
Q2: January, February, March
Q3: April, May, June
Q4: July, August, September

 

[lorio]

Thanks Lauren for making that clear. It's not seldom to see these non-standard quarters used by companies even when they are not talking about financial topics.

 

[lorio]

The question might be if CentOS8 still be able to serve as a longterm OS for servers. The delays in updates and the tighter control of RedHat might have an impact. The state of CentOS has been seen more critical. I haven't made up my mind about all this. But you might take a few minutes reading this threads here.

[CentOS] Blog article about the state of CentOS

[CentOS] Blog article about the state of CentOS

lists.centos.org

 

[monarobase]

Do you have an update about the initial pre-production release date ? Is cPanel 92 likely to be installable on CentOS 8 for preproduction (ie in october) or is it more likely to be for cPanel 94 (closer to december than october) ?

Our next server is due within the next month and I hope that we don't have to start with CloudLinux 7…

 

[ffeingol]

It was in reply to a CloudLinux V8 question (but a lot of us use that) and @cPanelLauren siad V94: CloudLinux 8.2 Questions That, as you said, is quite sad as we don't want to build a lot of CentOS 7 servers either (as EOL is not 'that far out').

 

[monarobase]

Ok so preview in v92 and production in v94. We will have to see just how much is functional in v92 so see if we can start with v92 and put up with a few bugs until v94 comes out or not

 

[cPanelLauren]

This was discussed the other day as @ffeingol mentioned, a preview for v92 and full support for v94 is the plan, so yes you should be able to install either CloudLinux or CentOS 8 with cPanel for preproduction starting in v92.

 

[jmginer]

yes you should be able to install either CloudLinux or CentOS 8 with cPanel for preproduction starting in v92.

That's good! thanks!