[CentOS-devel] Documenting the CentOS Linux 8 EOL process

Thu Jul 8 17:10:16 UTC 2021
Rich Bowen <rbowen at redhat.com>

As we get closer to the CentOS Linux 8 EOL, we're getting more and more 
questions about how the EOL is actually going to work. While there tends 
to be a great deal of "everybody just knows how it works" among the 
people actually on this list, we're getting attention from a much larger 
audience now, and they don't know.

To that end, I want to make sure we have clear documentation, 
prominently displayed, that sets expectations as we get closer to that 
December 31 date,

So ... as I understand, our process is basically:


1. Copy old data to vault.centos.org
2. Update web pages and links to say it is now on vault.centos.org
3. Turn off mirrorlist to that release name (aka all requests to 
CentOS-8 will 404)
4. Remove the data from the main mirrors with a file saying look at 
vault.centos.org
5. Mirrors pick all that up in 4-8 hours.


Is there more to it than this? Will we do anything different this time 
because CL8 is a special case? Am I missing any steps, or have I 
misunderstood any of the steps? Is this already documented somewhere 
that I simply haven't found yet?

Are there any changes to this process that we *want* to advocate for, 
given the special nature of this particular EOL? (No, I absolutely 
cannot promise anything, but I can ask.)