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CentOS 7
Extended Lifecycle Support
Getting worried about protecting your CentOS 7 workloads after the distribution’s end of life? TuxCare‘s Extended Lifecycle Support is ready to take over in 2024 so you can move forward with your CentOS 7 systems securely, smoothly and as planned.
Pricing as low as $42.50 per year or $4.25 per month for each system.
Don’t Wait – Secure Your CentOS 7 Systems Now!
Our research has identified numerous critical and high-risk vulnerabilities that your vendor hasn’t patched. Gain early access to CentOS 7 ELS to instantly receive these missing patches. Ignoring these vulnerabilities may expose your organization to significant cybersecurity risk.
CentOS 7 continues to live today supporting millions of workloads. Sure, you won’t get a new version of CentOS with new features, but CentOS 7 works fine as-is. But wait, no more security updates after June 2024? Well, that could be a problem… and that’s where TuxCare will come to the rescue.
We’ve been offering Extended Lifecycle Support (ELS) for CentOS Linux since November 2020 and will make CentOS 7 end of life a non-event when it comes around.
ELS allows you to continue using CentOS 7 safely for as long as you need while getting all the necessary assistance from our seasoned enterprise architects to ensure the smoothest transition to a new Linux distribution at your convenience.
So don’t sweat it.
Subscribe either monthly or yearly to our CentOS 7 Support coverage.
Choose Your ELS Coverage
Only pay for the exact amount of coverage you need (and nothing you don’t)
with our two ELS pricing options.
CentOS 7 ELS Standard
- Security patches for High and Critical CVEs for up to 5 years post CentOS 7 EOL
- Security patches for 60+ High and Critical CVEs unpatched by CentOS (Early Access)
CentOS 7 ELS Complete
Get everything included in ELS Standard, plus:
- 14-day SLA* security patches for all High and Critical CVEs
- CentOS 7 Technical Support and Migration Guidance
- Direct access to Level 3 technical support experts
- Support for a comprehensive set of packages
- Migration advice and recommendations
- Guidance on the best CentOS alternatives
- Configuration assistance
- Feature and functionality insights
- ️Design and architecture review
- Upgrades, patch deployment and CVE risk evaluation
- Integration and performance support + scalability guidance
- Container-based deployment guidance
- Backup and disaster recovery assistance
- Logging and debugging
* Starting from the date the vulnerability is publicly disclosed.
Ready to Purchase Your CentOS 7 ELS Licenses Online?
Ensure a secure and well-executed transition
for your CentOS 7 systems
Switching to TuxCare for CentOS 7 support is simple
As June 2024 approaches you can rest assured that switching from Red Hat’s official support for CentOS 7 to TuxCare ELS is straightforward.
Just run a single script and TuxCare will continuously provide the latest patches into your CentOS 7 servers – giving you more time to decide what to do after CentOS 7. You can even create a local mirror to store all our CentOS 7 support updates using rsync.
Your maintenance processes won’t be affected - you’ll continue to use your tool of choice for patch deployment (yum, dnf, etc).
Support for a Comprehensive List of Packages
When you sign up for TuxCare’s Extended Lifecycle Support,
you’ll get patches for an extensive package list,
providing maximum security for your operating system
What is changing with CentOS 7?
In December 2020 Red Hat Software, the company that sponsored the CentOS community project, announced it will no longer produce stable releases of the CentOS project to match the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) releases. Red Hat now only supports the upstream vendor release CentOS Stream, which is a rolling release, a preview of RHEL.
The major version CentOS 8 was to be the last stable community release of the RHEL clone, with no minor versions to follow, and Red Hat accelerated its end of life date to December 2021. CentOS 7 support continues to June 2024, but there is no CentOS stable release to switch to after that.
What are the implications?
You still have some time to migrate, but the clock is ticking. Ordinarily, you’d simply upgrade to CentOS 8 within the available time frame – i.e., before July 2024. But, CentOS 8 is now already end of life, so shifting to CentOS 8 is not an option – and there won’t be a CentOS 9.
For most enterprise users and production workloads, CentOS Stream is not an option outside of a development platform. Its rolling nature means it isn’t an exact copy of the matching RHEL release so application compatibility can easily break. You need to either switch to another Linux distribution or find a way to extend CentOS 7 support.
Finding an alternative means testing all your existing workloads and tools on a different distribution - and this is a long term operation that requires extensive planning.
And remember, just because no more updates will be coming for CentOS 7 after its end of life
date, that does not mean that new vulnerabilities won’t emerge. There has been an uptick of
vulnerabilities affecting old operating system versions, and older software in general, simply
because code is being more closely checked.
Every major Enterprise Linux Distribution
is covered by TuxCare ELS
TuxCare’s Extended Lifecycle Support is also available for other operating systems, including:
Extended Lifecycle Support for CentOS Stream 8
End of life: June 2024You can rely on Extended Lifecycle Support for CentOS Stream 8 to continue receiving security updates all the way through June 2028 – so that you have enough time to migrate to another Linux distribution securely.
Extended Lifecycle Support for CentOS 6
End of life: December 2020TuxCare’s Extended Lifecycle Support gives you the same official security patches you used to get with CentOS 6, and we’ll continue to provide you with ongoing security support right through to November 2026.
Extended Lifecycle Support for CentOS 8
End of life: December 2021All the way through January 2026, you can rely on TuxCare for Extended Lifecycle Support to cover security updates for your CentOS 8 Linux distribution – so that you have enough time to migrate to another distro.
Extended Lifecycle Support for Oracle Linux 6
End of life: March 2021TuxCare will deliver Extended Lifecycle Support for Oracle Linux 6 until December 2024, saving you significantly on costs compared to Oracle Linux Premier Support while providing the same vulnerability coverage.
Extended Lifecycle Support for PHP v0
Multiple EOL VersionsBuy yourself and your organization time to develop new production code while receiving ongoing security patches for out-of-support PHP versions with Extended Lifecycle Support to maintain the safety of your systems.
Extended Lifecycle Support for Python 2.x
End of life: January 2020Python Extended Lifecycle Service from TuxCare breathes new life into code written for Python 2.7 so you can continue using your existing software on AlmaLinux, Rocky, or Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 as before.
Extended Lifecycle Support for Ubuntu 16.04
End of life: April 2021Save on costs compared to Ubuntu Pro for Ubuntu 16.04 when you choose TuxCare Extended Lifecycle Support for ongoing security maintenance, which will keep you protected for up to 4 years past the end-of-life date.
Extended Lifecycle Support for Ubuntu 18.04
End of life: June 2023Choose TuxCare for Ubuntu 18.04 extended support and save significantly over an Ubuntu Pro subscription from Canonical, with security updates for your Ubuntu workloads lasting until April 2028.
Frequently Asked Questions About CentOS 7
You have about two years of CentOS 7 support left. Red Hat will cease providing updated packages for current CentOS Linux 7 users in June 2024. It should leave you with enough time to migrate to another operating system, but you may decide to continue using CentOS 7 for as long as possible. It could be to avoid the need to upgrade other applications, or because you simply can’t migrate your workloads within the two-year period.
Even though the official Red Hat support for CentOS 7 will end in June 2024, you can sign up for TuxCare Extended Lifecycle Support (ELS) in 2024 which will ensure that you keep your workloads safe and secure for many more years.
When the CentOS project announced that no future stable releases of CentOS will be published it didn’t mean that CentOS distributions would stop working. You’ll always be able to use CentOS 7, but you will lose official support in 2024 with the CentOS 7 EOL date set in June and there will be no minor releases either.
Considering the bigger picture, CentOS versions that exist as a stable release Linux distribution are indeed going away because CentOS 8 is already end of life, and there won’t be a CentOS 9 release date. With no official support, CentOS users won’t get protected by new vendor patches for emerging vulnerabilities or bug fixes. You need to either switch to an alternative Linux distribution or find an alternative source of support.
For many intents and purposes, yes. You and the rest of the CentOS community have until June 2024 to continue using CentOS Linux 7 with official support. It’s pointless to upgrade to CentOS 8, because it’s already end of life, and there won’t be a CentOS version of RHEL 9 – so no CentOS Linux 9.
Could the continuous delivery CentOS Stream work for your organization? There is a chance, but if you used CentOS versions because it is binary compatible with Red Hat Enterprise Linux, you’re out of luck. So, CentOS Linux as you knew it is discontinued – but soon, you’ll be able to sign up for many extra years of extra support for CentOS 7, so there’s no need to panic.
That’s when official Red Hat Software support ends for CentOS 7. That means that Red Hat will no longer provide patches and updates for CentOS 7, even if there is a critical vulnerability that must get fixed.
While end of life for CentOS 7 is only due June 2024, it is worth starting your planning to migrate early. Unable to plan migration for production systems in time? Watch this space for TuxCare’s CentOS 7 extended lifecycle support.
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