CentOS Deprecation Notice in WebHost Manager

[wswd]

Did a search and was shocked that nobody has mentioned this yet.

The following message is appearing in my CentOS 6.9 WHM:

On November 30, 2020, CentOS will stop supporting CentOS 6 on all systems, including your server. At that time CentOS will no longer provide bug, security, or feature updates. We encourage you to migrate to a server using CentOS 7 before November 30, 2020. Information about cPanel Inc.‘s deprecation plan will be forthcoming.

Only system administrators (root and root-level resellers) see this message.

I want it gone. There is absolutely no reason to display that 2.5 years in advance. I appreciate that you're getting the word out, but this is just ridiculous.

 

[mtindor]

Hmm. That's 1.5 years in advance. And it's easy to overlook that kind of thing if you aren't reminded. I had forgotten all about it. And if you have hundreds of account on multple C6 machines, now is the time to get started provisioning a new CentOS 7 box and migrating things. You don't want to get caught with your pants down a month away from non-support.

I don't like the warnings because I don't want to hear things i don't like to hear. But in the end, the warning is a great thing to have in their to keep admins aware of what they need to do.

Mike

 

[cPanelLauren]

Hello @wswd

That message is appearing on EDGE and CURRENT builds of cPanel - v70 (though it is due to be released this week), which would explain most likely why a lot of people have not noticed it yet. I would encourage you if you're going to run EDGE versions of cPanel to join the EDGE user's mailing list here: EDGE-Users Info Page
- there is a discussion on this very subject occurring on that list right now and the reasoning behind which we have implemented the warning. One of the quotes from the list on it is as follows:

The early messaging is in response to the reactions and feedback we received when we announced our plans around the EOL of CentOS 5. You're right, a large number of servers will be cycled out before CentOS 6 hits End of Life. Often those servers are replaced with the same environment; we want to avoid that.

What we observe is that a very large number of systems used CentOS 5 more than a year after the EoL date for CentOS 5, and continue to do so. We're hoping this helps users make educated and informed decisions about the environment they're hosting in. We encourage looking ahead, so users aren't broad-sided the next year.

A couple more notes. 1) A similar message is displayed (or soon will be) by the installer when installing on version 6 of CentOS, RHEL, and CloudLinux; and 2) The 'all' privilege is required to see the message in the WHM UI.

 

[wswd]

Hmm. That's 1.5 years in advance.

No, it's actually 2.5 years in advance. November 2018 to November 2020 would be 2 years, plus May to November. 2.5 years is absolutely ridiculous for a message like that.

And it's easy to overlook that kind of thing if you aren't reminded. I had forgotten all about it. And if you have hundreds of account on multple C6 machines, now is the time to get started provisioning a new CentOS 7 box and migrating things. You don't want to get caught with your pants down a month away from non-support.

If it's easy to overlook what OS are running on the system, you shouldn't be in this business. Not you as in you personally, but the generic you. I can tell you what OS versions are on every single server I've provisioned, and when it comes time to upgrade them, I can guarantee you I will. Not going to overlook anything.

@cPanelLauren I run the Current Build. It is not cPanel's job to teach server administration. If people are too stupid to upgrade/migrate their systems, then survival of the fittest needs to kick in.

If you're going to put such an intrusive and nonsensical message in WHM (almost 3 years in advance!!!!), at least give the ability to us who know what we're doing to dismiss the message. That message being there for the next 2.5 years is going to make me very upset.

 

[rpvw]

@wswd
I couldn't agree with you more - it's bad enough that governments think we all stupid and need to be nannied - it is unacceptable that cPanel start treating us like imbeciles as well !


***EDIT***

How about adding the Notifications Bell and enumeration to the WHM interface that is already deployed in the users cPanel area ?

 

[cPanelLauren]

Hi, @wswd @rpvw @mtindor I wanted to let you all know that based on a discussion occurring internally and from our edge users list there is some movement happening with this. Here is a quote from Kenneth Power our VP of Product Development on this:

Hi Everyone,
My thanks to everyone that provided feedback, suggestions, ideas, and perspective. We want these messages to have high visibility, hence the placement on the main page after login. Based upon the feedback I believe there are other things we can do to making our in-product announcements better. The following is a summary of the feedback about the messaging:
* From the user perspective, provide a way to temporarily dismiss the message. A period of 30 days was a suggestion
* From the hosting provider perspective, provide a way to completely disable the message
* From the hosting provider perspective, provide a more flexible method of choosing which announcements are passed along from cPanel, Inc. to the Hosting Customer
Please feel free to make any corrections if the above is inaccurate.
Regards,
Kenneth Power

I don't see a case for this internally at this time but I can promise to update this thread with more information as it becomes available and @rpvw I really like your idea as well.

 

[sparek-3]

I haven't seen this notice yet. Presumably this is in the latest cPanel 70 that was released?

But through reading comments, my understanding of this is that it is only shown in root's WHM. Is that not correct? Is it shown in end-user's cPanels or reseller's WHM?

I'm also not sure how big the notice is, perhaps it's so big that it's affecting usability?

Other than that, I'd say that if cPanel server administrators had a better track record of actually following, understanding, and applying OS level updates, this would likely be less of an issue.

The vast majority of our servers are still CentOS 6. But I've been aware of the CentOS 6 end of life for some time and we will be starting the change over to CentOS 7 soon. But sadly, I think there are a lot of cPanel servers whose administrators only do whatever cPanel tells them to do. And for those administrators a big warning about CentOS 6's upcoming end of life is probably prudent.

 

[cPanelLauren]

Hi @sparek-3

I spun up a test VM with CentOS 6.9 on it to show what this looks like for you:


It is only shown to root and root-level resellers - no one else sees this. I do believe we're looking at other options to make these notifications more user-friendly as well.

 

[sparek-3]

Is it present on all subsequent WHM pages? Like when you click Create a New Account?

Or is it just on the main WHM sign in page?

 

[cPanelLauren]

No, it's only present on the main page. All subsequent pages are back to normal.

 

[sparek-3]

Hmm... I don't know then. Maybe I'm missing something. Not sure that I see what all the hubbub is about.

 

[Infopro]

And for those administrators a big warning about CentOS 6's upcoming end of life is probably prudent.

A nag message for the next 2 years is a bit much.

 

[wswd]

Hmm... I don't know then. Maybe I'm missing something. Not sure that I see what all the hubbub is about.

Exactly as @Infopro says. A nag message for 2.5 years is absolutely ridiculous. 3 months in advance I can see. Maybe even 6 months. But almost 3 years???

 

[cPanelLauren]

Exactly as @Infopro says. A nag message for 2.5 years is absolutely ridiculous. 3 months in advance I can see. Maybe even 6 months. But almost 3 years???

A nag message for the next 2 years is a bit much.

This is exactly why they're looking at other options for this. As soon as I have more information on what will be done to change this I'll update you all here.

 

[Solozzo]

Dismiss this notice or remind me later would be enough for this ridiculous warning message.

 

[sparek-3]

Wow. Of all the deficiencies that cPanel has, this is the one that garners the most attention?

Probably the best way for cPanel to look at this is that those people that are going to upgrade to CentOS 7 before CentOS 6's EOL already know about this and will do the needful. Those that don't know about this, they're not going to upgrade regardless of any nag message.

I guess I'm just surprised that there are still this many people actually logging into their WHM to perform tasks and not utilizing the API. Or maybe my ignoring skills are just better. Am I seriously the only one that's not bothered by this?

 

[Metro2]

I'll probably be in the minority here, but I'll chime in anyway...

Personally, for me, I like the fact that we're receiving notices far in advance for such a critical transition. Because I run a small (but well run with lots of customer loyalty) service, short notice on anything this critical can be difficult to plan logistically and financially. Buying new servers is not cheap (unless you're amazingly successful and have money falling out of your pockets) and it's not exactly easy (unless you have the great fortune of employees and people to do it all for you).

With that said, the pros & cons & feedback from my perspective:

Pro - Far ahead advance warning of a critical important change.
Pro - Only I see the warning, not my customers, since they only have access to cPanel and not WHM.
Pro - cPanel is not waiting until 6 months to alert me of a major change.
Pro - This gives me a lot of time to plan and save up money for new boxes, since upgrading CloudLinux / CentoOS from 6.x to 7 on a production server could result in disaster. This gives me time to plan expenses and logistics.

Con - They "nag" message is there every day for years (currently).

Feedback / Suggestion - It would be great if there were an option to select "Don't show me this message again for 3 months" or some other way to make it not be there every day for years, but continue to receive this very considerate reminder / warning that I need to be prepared.

I think it would be great to have this notice appear in WHM for root user every few months until the deadline approaches, and then maybe every day during the final 3 months.

But those are just my opinions and my take on it. I really appreciate it when fair warning is given, rather than scrambling to see if I can come up with thousands of dollars to set up new boxes at the last minute. Thank you cPanel team!

 

[AM2015]

I also find the nag message totally annoying -- and while I have no problem with the initial message, I do think that there should be a way of dismissing it. Yes... only I can see it -- but it is distracting and self-defeating for it to be left as a permanent message, as users will simply become habituated and ignore it.

 

[nStiac]

Nagging for 2.5 years is ridiculous... +1 on that.

>> This is exactly why they're looking at other options for this. As soon as I have more information on what will be done to change this I'll update you all here.

<< OK! Kudos Cpanel... you guy's are pretty smart people.. can't wait to see this thing gone soon enough...

 

[mickalo]

I've been reading through this thread, as we just noticed this message today, we are running Centos 6 & Stable WHM/Cpanel. My question at this point is as we only host a few account on our server at this time is it going to be absolutely necessary top migrate to a new server before this EOL is reached or are there going to workarounds available if we rather not go through all changes to move to another server?