As the CentOS Project accelerated the End-of-Life date for CentOS 8, no further operating system updates will be available after December 31, 2021.
IMPORTANT: Even though Plesk will extend technical support until April 12, 2022, security issues raised by the absence of OS updates due to the vendor´s EoL will not be covered.
Therefore, the Plesk team strongly recommends switching to AlmaLinux or RockyLinux, both supported by Plesk Obsidian 18.0.41, available from January 18th, 2022.
In conclusion, on January the 18th we welcome the release of Plesk Obsidian 18.0.41 with RockyLinux support.
Furthermore, CentOS announced several other critical changes to its roadmap that will have an impact on the Plesk products, users, and partners:
- CentOS 8 will be transformed to an upstream (development) branch of Red Hat Enterprise Linux called CentOS Stream, where previous CentOS versions are part of the stable branch.
- Although CentOS 7 life cycle remains unchanged, updates and security patches will be available until June 30, 2024. However, keep in mind that the life cycle timing is subject to change.
For additional information on the CentOS Project changes, you can also read their detailed blog post or refer to the CentOS FAQ page.
Plesk Support for CentOS 8
If you’re wondering how CentOS 8 End-of-Life policy might affect your Plesk, we offer you some workarounds that may be of interest. The good news is that Plesk has already been investing in product support for Ubuntu for decades, and will continue to provide technical support for CentOS 8 until April 12, 2022.
Plesk Obsidian supports Ubuntu 20.04 LTS starting from Plesk Obsidian 18.0.29, and Plesk Onyx 17.8, Ubuntu 18.04 LTS. Nonetheless, if you’re a Plesk Onyx user, note that from April 22, 2021, it is no longer available for new purchases and has stopped receiving further development and technical support requests. Please read this article to learn how to upgrade to the latest Plesk Obsidian and how to automate renewals to keep your Plesk updated at all times.
When to Transition and Other Alternatives
CentOS 7 still remains a good choice for new servers, and it is the most popular choice amongst Plesk users. That’s why, it will be officially supported by RHEL (and also Plesk) until June 30, 2024.
That said, there are a couple of alternatives we are excited to share with you.
First of all, as an alternative to CentOS 8, the Plesk team strongly recommends switching to AlmaLinux OS, supported starting from Plesk Obsidian 18.0.35. In this case, in-place conversion of CentOS 8 to AlmaLinux is as easy as running a script from the AlmaLinux team. Please refer to this page for more information.
AlmaLinux OS is a free new RHEL fork from the CloudLinux team, and it’s been developed in close cooperation with the community.
Additionally, we’ll also consider supporting CentOS Stream based on actual industry flow. So, people who will make a decision to follow the official RHEL distro will have CentOS Stream as an option. RHEL states that switching from CentOS 8 to CentOS Stream will be in place and smooth.
Secondly, another alternative strongly recommended by Plesk is RockyLinux. Indeed, with the new release of Plesk Obsidian 18.0.41 we are excited to offer RockyLinux support, together with an in-place conversion for your convenience.
Overall, RockyLinux is an open-source enterprise OS offering a stable and reliable experience, making it an ideal alternative to CentOS 8 for a continuous, solid experience together with Plesk.
Finally, Plesk will keep supporting CloudLinux OS 8. This additional supported operating system provides an upgrade path for customers with CloudLinux 6 or 7 deployments. CloudLinux is another commercially supported operating system that many of our partners benefit from. CloudLinux includes many advanced features such as improved user resource limitations, increased user visibility, and advanced customer isolation.
If you need additional information about this topic, please reach out to our support team. They will be happy to support you. And if you want to share your thoughts with us, drop us a line in the comment section below.
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8 Comments
Please note the official RedHat Enterprise Linux 8 is now available for free for individuals and small organisations (up to 16 servers): https://access.redhat.com/discussions/5719451
I can’t open the link you provided for some reason, are there any other links I can read about this issue Mike?
Other resource:
https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/new-year-new-red-hat-enterprise-linux-programs-easier-ways-access-rhel
And the actual thing:
https://developers.redhat.com/products/rhel/overview
Will you support RHEL forks that keep 1:1 mirroring such as the new AlamaLinux?
https://almalinux.org/
Hi Brad, yes, as explained in the blog post, we also plan to deliver AlmaLinux OS support for Plesk in summer 2021. Thank you!
I’m running CentOS 8 and it clearly seems that I will need to migrate to a new system. Since I see no mention of supporting in place upgrading to AlamaLinux. What OS would you recommend at this point that is also supported by majority of extensions?
Hi Abel, please refer to this page for all operating systems which are receiving updates and support from the OS vendor and are therefore supported by a current and supported version of Plesk. Thanks!
AlamaLinux script worked very smoothly.
https://support.plesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360018916859-Does-Plesk-support-AlmaLinux-as-an-alternative-to-CentOS-8-
Now running AlamaLinux on the box and plesk updates no longer fail and I am happy knowing that my server is up to date.