[CentOS] CentOS 6.3 packages updates options without upgrading.

[Dipal Bhatt]

On Mon, Nov 7, 2016 at 11:12 PM, John R Pierce <pierce at hogranch.com> wrote:

> On 11/7/2016 8:33 PM, Dipal Bhatt wrote:
>
>> Unfortunately, there's not possibility in this specific situation to be
>> able to update from 6.3 -> 6.8.
>>
>
> any such external specifications that insist you run an old obsolete
> operating system are inherently broken.   I hope this server isn't
> connected to the internet, and isn't providing any services to untrusted
> users.
>
> any RHEL/CentOS 6 compatible applications you have that work on 6.3 that
> won't work on 6.8 are broken.
>
>  * 6.8's kernel is is still 2.6.32, same as 6.3.
>  * 6.8's glibc is still 2.12
>  * 6.8's php is still 5.3
>  * 6.8's mysql is still 5.1
>  * 6.8's postgresql is still 8.4
>  * 6.8's perl is still 5.10
>  * 6.8's python is still 2.6.6
>  * etc etc.
>
> all of these components have security and bug fixes from later releases
> backported to them.


Excellent, and thanks John to clarify the above compatibility factor.  It
seems,  any application that strictly depends on the 6.3 packages must not
be updated to 6.8.  And, outside of that dependency, I gather it should be
safe to update any hand picked packages to the latest is my understanding
here. It seems, in general RHEL tries to maintain ABI level compatibility
but they may not be perfect and they may only test with the packages set
current at the time.  So, it's worth testing and possibly updating to 6.8
packages where there's serious security fixes or such.  But, yes, there's
no way to update the 6.3 to 6.8 as I repeatedly mentioned which is the only
requirement/constraint.

Thanks again!