On May 22, 2010, at 2:23 PM, Gordon Messmer wrote: > On 05/22/2010 11:09 AM, Aniruddha wrote: >> >> I've read some posts in the forums which seems to indicate that not >> every CentOS version is well supported. Is it possible to install >> CentOS 5.5 on a server and only apply security updates for 7 years? > > No. As best I understand Red Hat's model, EL 5 will have 7 years of > support from the time of its initial release. CentOS will rebuild their > packages to provide the same. In neither case can you install the > current version today and expect 7 years of support. With Red Hat's EL > you have the option to install a given point release and apply only > security fixes, staying at point release until the EOL for the remainder > of the major release's support lifetime. CentOS does not provide that > option easily. You could watch the errata feed and manually apply only > the security related patches, but if you use "yum update" without > further options, you'll be updated to whatever point release is current. > >> Or >> is the preferred way to upgrade to each minor version? > > The preference is yours. Keeping your system current is the easiest > management strategy I've seen extended release support from the upstream vendor for some specific kernels. I haven't looked closely into this, to see why. My suspicion is that they are maintaining some kernels from just before more major updates (like the addition of KVM) that may have negatively impacted certain larger customers. Unfortunately, in my case, when these have been released they didn't resolve some security issue in them that we were interested in. So we had to go with the latest kernel anyway.