[CentOS] CentOS releases and the new and improved CentOS Vault.

Wed Jun 22 11:42:41 UTC 2005
Johnny Hughes <mailing-lists at hughesjr.com>

There seems to be some confusion over the way we release CentOS, and the
release cycle.  

First, let's define what the upstream provider does.

They released RHEL-2.1 (originally RHAS-2.1), RHEL-3 and RHEL-4.  Those
are specific and unique releases.  They have the following Maintenance
Phases:

Phase 1: Full Support
Start Date: General Availability

End Date: 2.5 Years from General Availability date

Description: During the Full Support phase, new hardware support will be
provided at the discretion of the upstream provider via Updates,
Additionally, all available and qualified errata will be applied to the
Enterprise products via Updates (or as required for Security level
errata.) 
------
Phase 2: Deployment
Start Date: 2.5 years from General Availability (end of Full Support)

End Date: 3 Years from General Availability date

Description: During the Deployment phase, all available and qualified
security and bug fix errata will be applied to the Enterprise products
via Updates. Security Errata will be released as necessary independent
an Update. 
------
Phase 3: Maintenance
Start Date: 3 Years from General Availability (end of Deployment)

End Date: 4 Years from end of Deployment (7 years from General
Availability)

Description: During the Maintenance phase, only Security errata and
select mission critical bug fixes will be released for the Enterprise
products.
------

Phase 1 and 2 products will get Enhancement updates (RHEA), Bugfix
updates (RHBA),  and Security updates (RHSA), usually released 2-4 times
a year. The updates have numbers (ie., Update 1, Update 2, Update 3,
etc.) Currently, RHEL 3 is at Update 5, RHEL 4 is at Update 1.

Phase 3 products will only get security updates, usually released
individually.  RHEL 2.1 is in this phase.  There will probably be
individual security updates released from this point forward on this
distro.

http://www.redhat.com/security/updates/errata/

http://www.redhat.com/security/updates/

There is no RHEL-3.4 or RHEL-3.5 ... or RHEL-4.1.  If you run up2date on
RHEL, you get the updates when RedHat releases them.

There are separate ISOs for the different Updates ... but only one set
(or tree) of updated RPMS for each distro (RHEL-2, RHEL-3, RHEL-4).  If
you install off any of the ISOs and then run up2date, you are at the
latest update.  For example, if you install off the RHEL-3 update 1
ISOs, then run up2date from RHN, you are at RHEL-3 update 5 when
finished ... not RHEL-3 update 1 ... and all of this is RHEL 3.

----------------

How does this relate to CentOS releases.

First thing is this ... the releases are CentOS 2, CentOS 3, and CentOS
4.

Both CentOS 3.1 and CentOS 3.5 are CentOS 3 ... both CentOS 4.0 and
CentOS 4.1 are CentOS 4.

So, unlike moving from Mandriva 10.1 to 10.2, moving from CentOS-3.1 to
CentOS-3.5 is not changing to a new major OS release ... you are just
doing exactly the same thing as the above upstream example.  Moving from
Update 1 to Update 5.

CentOS provides new ISOs (just like upstream) when an Update X is
released.

Let me say it again ... moving from CentOS-4.0 to CentOS-4.1 is not
changing to a new major release, it is just applying normally released
updates ... except, at that point, there are new ISOs, with new hardware
supported at install time.

So the CentOS release model is very much like the upstream one, if you
run an update, you are at the latest versions for your release tree ...
exactly like upstream.

---------------------
That being said, there are some who want to treat CentOS-3.1 and
CentOS-3.5 as a separate release (or CentOS-4.0 and CentOS-4.1) ... and
not part of the same tree.  That is not how CentOS is maintained, but we
have decided to enhance our vault to allow those people access to the
individual trees.

If you look at http://vault.centos.org/ you will see that there are
currently the following directories:

3.1, 3.1-final, 3.3, 3.3-final, 3.4, 3.4-final, and 4.0

In the case of the CentOS 3, the numbered releases are the starting
point .. and the 3.x-final is the ending point tree for that version.
In the case of CentOS 4, the 4.0 is the ending tree ... the beginning
tree was just the os directory under the 4.0 tree.

There are no new security updates applied to those hives, and they are a
snapshot of the tree at those points.  Again, the tree here are
_NOT_UPDATED_ any longer ... so don't use them and expect to have an up
to date system.  The up to date system is the latest trees that are
always available via mirror.centos.org or the pblic mirrors.

The vault takes up a major amount of disc space, which will grow as we
continue to release new trees and it is not replicated to public
mirrors.  It is also only available on one machine, so bandwidth and
access may be much slower than the real CentOS trees.

My advice is that you should change your way of thinking so that you
maintain your software the way the upstream provider and CentOS provide
it, if at all possible.  However, if you cannot do this, then the vault
will provide limited access to the older trees.

Thanks,
Johnny Hughes
CentOS-4 lead developer
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