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CentOS® 8
Endless Lifecycle Support
Extend the security lifecycle of your CentOS 8 systems with ongoing security patches for years beyond
the end-of-life date, giving you plenty of time to plan a migration to a new distribution.
Pricing as low as $42.50 per year or $4.25 per month for each system
(guaranteed price lock for the term of your contract)
High and Critical CVEs patched by
TuxCare since EOL
3388
CentOS 8 is now, of course, officially end of life. But if you’re still
running it now, relax. You have a safe haven for CentOS 8 at TuxCare,
giving you as much time as you need to execute and plan your migration.
We’ve been supporting older versions of Linux for years, and today over 100,000
end-of-life Linux nodes are getting cybersecurity updates and fixes from TuxCare.
What happened with
CentOS EOL?
In December 2020, Red Hat Software, the sponsor of the CentOS community release, changed course and advised the Linux community that it will stop producing stable releases of CentOS Linux. CentOS 8 would be the last release that is 1:1 binary compatible with a Red Hat Enterprise Linux release.
Only the rolling release, CentOS Stream, would now continue to be developed by Red Hat. At the same time, Red Hat advised system administrators that CentOS 8 would reach end of life in Dec 2021 – years earlier than expected.
What are the
consequences?
For many workloads, CentOS Stream cannot function as an enterprise Linux solution because a rolling release doesn’t give enterprise users the time to battle test new operating system versions. By cutting official support for CentOS 8 short and with no release date for a new version, Red Hat put many companies in a difficult position.
Enterprise users and web hosts needed to choose between a risky, rapid transition to an alternative commercial or community release such as AlmaLinux, Rocky Linux, or Ubuntu – or taking unacceptable risks in running unsupported Linux systems.
What is Endless Lifecycle Support?
Endless lifecycle support is a simple concept that buys you time to migrate to an alternative Linux distribution. It’s straightforward: as soon as a new
security vulnerability is found or if bug fixes are needed, TuxCare immediately develops a patch that you can deploy across your Linux systems using
traditional package management tools. We don’t wait for the vendor to release a patch. Instead, we rely on our experienced in-house developers to
analyze the vulnerability, rapidly releasing a patch that’s just as effective as the official vendor patch.
TuxCare gives you exactly the same critical updates and patches
you would get if you still had official vendor support, including:
Access to 24/7 support services thanks to a ticket system, alongside technical account management
Rebootless service installation, making sure your infrastructure remains always available
Patches produced by a team with over a decade’s experience in developing and maintaining RHEL-based derivatives
An easy-to-swap-into-place solution that offers full compatibility with current infrastructure
Peace of mind because your end-of-life CentOS 8 systems keep running securely
Switching to Endless Lifecycle
Support is as easy as 1-2-3
It’s quick and easy to enable Endless Lifecycle Support across your CentOS 8 fleet. All it takes is running a short script on your Linux servers, and you’re up and running with TuxCare’s end-of-life support for CentOS 8.
Supported components
You can rely on TuxCare to continually update kernel, Apache, PHP, glibc, OpenSSL, OpenSSH, and Python packages. This includes ...
- acpid
- glibc
- attr
- php
- info
- Iptstate
- gdb
- glib2
- bash
- basesystem
- authconfig
- zlib
- acl
- ed
- lslk
- blktrace
- bc
- openssh
- device-mapper
- dhclient
- dhcpv6
- bzip2
- busybox
- bridge-utils
- httpd
- userspace packages
- crash
- cyrus-imapd
- cyrus-sasl
Every major end-of-life enterprise Linux
distribution is covered by TuxCare's ELS
TuxCare’s Endless 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.
Learn More
Endless Lifecycle Support
for Oracle Linux 7
End of life: December 2024
Give your team plenty of time to upgrade to Oracle Linux 8 or 9 with ELS for Oracle Linux 7, which continues to deliver security patches until December 2028 at a much more affordable cost than an Oracle Premier Support plan.
Learn More
Endless Lifecycle Support for CentOS 7
End of life: June 2024CentOS 7 is going end of life in June 2024, but you can enjoy ongoing security updates through June 2029 with our Extended Lifecycle Support – buying time to plan your migration, while keeping your workload safe.
Learn More
Endless 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.
Learn More
Endless Lifecycle Support for Spring
End of life: Varies for Spring ProjectsWith ongoing end-of-life security updates for various Spring projects, including Spring Framework, Spring Boot, and more, TuxCare’s ELS for Spring enables you to ensure long-term security, compatibility, and compliance for your Spring applications.
Learn More
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.
Learn More
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.
Learn More
Extended Lifecycle Support for PHP
End of life: Extended Lifecycle Support for PHPBuy 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.
Learn More
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.
Learn More
Ubuntu 16.04 End of Life Extended Lifecycle Support
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.
Learn MoreFrequently Asked Questions
The official vendor support for CentOS 8 has now been discontinued. If you have any workloads still relying on CentOS 8 you won’t receive ongoing vendor updates. When a new vulnerability for CentOS 8 surfaces – and it will – you won’t get a fix, and your systems will be vulnerable to the resulting exploit.
However, you can sign up for TuxCare’s Endless Lifecycle Support (ELS) to cover you for security fixes for CentOS 8 for as long as you need, just the same way Red Hat support would cover you, if it was still available.
Yes, but you need to find a way to ensure that you apply critical security patches. You can develop these patches in-house if your organization has the required Linux server kernel development expertise.
Your alternative is to partner with a vendor that can provide these patches for you. With TuxCare’s Endless Lifecycle Support you can continue to use CentOS 8 for as long as you need. However, you cannot continue using CentOS 8 on production systems without third-party support.
There are two parts to this answer. The CentOS project is continuing in the shape of CentOS Stream, a CentOS version that is a rolling release, continuous delivery Linux distribution that is essentially a preview of the regular RHEL stable releases issued by Red Hat.
The change lies in that there will no longer be new releases of a fixed, stable version of CentOS. With the respect to workloads that relied on binary compatibility with RHEL, CentOS 8 is now discontinued as the rolling release CentOS Stream will not be binary compatible with the latest RHEL release.
CentOS Stream is the replacement for CentOS 8. For some members of the CentOS community, CentOS Stream would be a suitable replacement for their workload, for example in some scientific or development environments or where just one or two machines are involved.
However, CentOS Stream’s rolling release nature means it’s not a replacement for many enterprise production workloads; or for web hosts who are CentOS users. And, in that sense, there is no direct replacement for CentOS 8, though alternative Linux distros include AlmaLinux, Amazon Linux, Oracle Linux, Rocky Linux, or even Ubuntu.
We support CentOS 8.4 and 8.5 Stable – For this and other distro support, please see: https://docs.tuxcare.com/
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