Beyond CentOS 7 End of Life: The Long-Term Support Outlook

CentOS 7 EOL, and the subsequent end of community support and security updates, took place on June 30, 2024. How did we get here and what is the impact to CentOS 7 support?

In this blog, we discuss the impact of CentOS EOL, look at the current options for organizations seeking CentOS 7 support, and discuss the long-term outlook for those who still have CentOS 7 deployments.

The Current CentOS 7 Support Lifecycle

On December 8, 2020, the CentOS project and Red Hat simultaneously announced that they were switching focus to CentOS Stream and updating the end-of-life (EOL) for CentOS 8 at the end of 2021 (a shocking 8 years ahead of schedule).

However, the announced EOL for CentOS 8 had no impact to CentOS 7. The CentOS project continued to publish updates until the set end of Maintenance Support on June 30, 2024. This CentOS 7 EOL date means it completed its full 10-year life cycle.

Life After CentOS 7

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CentOS 7 Support Lifecycle Overview

Is CentOS 7 Still Supported?

No, CentOS 7 reached end of life on June 30, 2024, so it is no longer supported by the community. 

CentOS Linux 7 has gone through several phases in its lifecycle, the last one being the “Maintenance Support 2” phase where only what the CentOS maintainers and Red Hat consider to be critical bug and high-severity security vulnerabilities were addressed via a patch release.

CentOS 7 was in this phase until it reached EOL. The phase began in August 2020 and took CentOS 7 out of “Maintenance Phase 1” which, along with General Availability, is where most of the changes, including minor releases, occur.

On-Demand Webinar: Planning for CentOS 7 EOL 
 

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CentOS 7 End of Life Date

CentOS Linux 7 reached end of life on June 30, 2024, the same date that RHEL 7 entered the next vendor support phase: RHEL 7 Extended Lifecycle Support. CentOS 7 is no longer receiving any security updates or bug fixes.

Did the CentOS 7 EOL Date Change?

No, CentOS 7 completed its full 10-year support lifecycle as anticipated.

Support Options Prior to CentOS 7 EOL

When CentOS 7 was current, there were several support options, including 1) community self-support where in public forums users can ask community members for assistance, 2) acquiring the upstream product, RHEL, through Red Hat, paying for the software and technical support, and 3) enterprise-grade community open source support by OpenLogic.

Upstream Vendor Support for CentOS 7 

Red Hat supported CentOS 7 through bug reports filed against RHEL 7 in Bugzilla.

Bugs filed in Bugzilla don’t always get the attention that many of us think that they should receive, but at least the problem is documented for others encountering the same problem. 

Should your issue be addressed by Red Hat, there’s no guarantee of quick turnaround — unless it is something they consider high priority. Often solutions (links to upstream patches, directly submitted patches, etc.) take months to be included in a RHEL release. If the version of RHEL that you filed the bug against is no longer the current minor release, you may find the ticket gets closed without resolution.

That said, it is good to be able to reference a Bugzilla issue when reporting the issue through other support channels.

You can also submit issues at the CentOS project but it must be specific to CentOS and not RHEL.

Upstream Maintainer Support for CentOS 7 

Sometimes the fastest way to get an issue resolved with a package is to take the issue directly to the programmers who maintain the original package that Red Hat includes with RHEL.

If the problem is not present in the version(s) that the maintainers publish, probably due to a configuration or code change implemented by Red Hat, the upstream folks will likely reject your support request.

When the problem is present in the original code, most projects want to hear about the issue directly. The people responsible for the projects often have a reputation to uphold, even if it’s only the reputation of the project and not for themselves.

The upside to upstream support is that issues can usually be resolved faster than the upstream vendor support option, provided that the project is being actively developed. The downside is that Red Hat is not likely to incorporate a fix from the package upstream in a future update or release any time soon unless they rebase the package on a newer version.

Community Support for CentOS 7

Another support channel is community support, aka peer support. This method can be hit or miss because it is the equivalent of casting your question out to a large group of people without knowing the background of the respondents or the quality of the response that you reel back to shore.

Community support can be obtained through mailing lists, chat/IRC servers, or online groups.

If the problem is commonly encountered or you happen to catch the eye of someone who knows exactly what is wrong, or at least how to troubleshoot the issue properly, community support can be a wonderful option.

On the other hand, an uncommon (or never-seen-before) issue can result in little (or no) response, delayed responses, wrong responses, or accidental misinformation.

The people responding to community support requests often have a genuine desire to help you, but they have no real incentive to solve your problem. 

Commercial Support for CentOS 7 

Purchasing RHEL does not give you support on CentOS; it’s buying an equivalent commercial Linux distribution.

RHEL subscriptions include commercial support with response time commitments via Service Level Agreements (SLAs). However, Red Hat does not offer technical support for CentOS 7, only for RHEL 7.

This is where 3rd party support for CentOS 7 from OpenLogic can be an excellent option.

Get a Quote for CentOS EOL Support

For all versions of CentOS, OpenLogic provides LTS and technical support that includes unbiased migration guidance from real Linux experts. Click the button below to request a custom quote today. 

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Additional Resources

• Blog - Comparing CentOS Alternatives
• Datasheet - CentOS LTS and Technical Support
• Blog - What's Next for CentOS Stream
• Blog - Choosing the Best Linux Distro
• Webinar - Exploring the Post-CentOS Landscape with AlmaLinux and Rocky Linux
• Blog - CentOS Stream Migration Checklist
• White Paper - Decision Maker's Guide to Enterprise Linux