https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/fastest-road-centos-linux-red-hat-enterprise-linux Skip to content Featured links * Support * Console * Developers * Start a trial * All Red Hat + For customers o Customer support o Documentation o Support cases o Subscription management o Red Hat Ecosystem Catalog o Find a partner + For partners o Partner login o Partner support o Become a partner + Try, buy, & sell o Red Hat Marketplace o Red Hat Store o Contact sales o Start a trial + Learning resources o Training and certification o For developers o Hybrid cloud learning hub o Interactive labs o Learning community o Red Hat TV + Open source communities o Ansible o For system administrators o For architects * Products * Solutions * Training & services * Resources * Partners * About * Explore more Platform products * Red Hat Enterprise LinuxA flexible, stable operating system to support hybrid cloud innovation. * Red Hat OpenShiftA container platform to build, modernize, and deploy applications at scale. * Red Hat Ansible Automation PlatformA foundation for implementing enterprise-wide automation. Try & buy * Start a trialAssess a product with a no-cost trial. * Buy onlineBuy select products and services in the Red Hat Store. * Integrate with major cloud providersBuy Red Hat solutions using committed spend from providers, including: Cloud providers: Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Featured cloud services Build, deploy, and scale applications quickly. We'll manage the rest. * Red Hat OpenShift Service on AWS * Red Hat OpenShift AI * Microsoft Azure Red Hat OpenShift * See all cloud services See all products By category * Artificial intelligence * Automation * Cloud-native development * Digital transformation * Edge computing * Infrastructure * SAP workloads By organization type * Automotive * Financial services * Healthcare * Industrial sector * Media and entertainment * Mid-sized * Public sector * Telecommunications By customer * British Army * Edenor * HCA Healthcare * Macquarie Bank * Tata Consultancy Services * UPS * Search all success stories Explore solutions Services * Consulting * Open Innovation Labs * Technical Account Management Training & certification * All courses and exams * All certifications * Verify a certification * Skills assessment * Learning subscription * Learning community * Red Hat Academy * FAQs * Connect with learning experts Featured * Red Hat System Administration I (RH124) * Red Hat OpenShift Administration I (DO280) * Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE) Explore services Topics * APIs * Automation * Cloud computing * DevOps * Digital transformation * Edge computing * Linux * Microservices * Security * Virtualization * See all topics Articles * What are cloud services? * What is edge computing? * What is hybrid cloud? * Why build a Red Hat cloud? * Cloud vs. edge * Red Hat OpenShift vs. Kubernetes * Learning Ansible basics * What is Linux? More to explore * Blog * Customer success stories * Events and webinars * Newsroom * Podcasts and video series * Resource library * Training and certification Explore resources For customers * Our partners * Red Hat Ecosystem Catalog * Find a partner For partners * Partner Connect * Become a partner * Training * Support * Log in About us * Our company * How we work * Our social impact * Development model * Subscription model * Product support Open source * Open source commitments * How we contribute * Red Hat on GitHub Company details * Analyst relations * Blog * Locations * Newsroom Communities * Ansible * For system administrators * For architects * Customer advocacy Explore Red Hat Contact us For customers * Customer support * Documentation * Support cases * Subscription management * Red Hat Ecosystem Catalog * Find a partner For partners * Partner login * Partner support * Become a partner Try, buy, & sell * Red Hat Marketplace * Red Hat Store * Contact sales * Start a trial Learning resources * Training and certification * For developers * Hybrid cloud learning hub * Interactive labs * Learning community * Red Hat TV Open source communities * Ansible * For system administrators * For architects For you New Recommendations As you browse redhat.com, we'll recommend resources you may like. For now, try these. --------------------------------------------------------------------- * All Red Hat products * Tech topics * Red Hat resources close SupportConsoleDevelopersStart a trialContact Select a language[English ] Contact us English Select a language * Jian Ti Zhong Wen * English * Francais * Deutsch * Italiano * Ri Ben Yu * hangugeo * Portugues * Espanol Select a language[English ] [ ] [Search] [talk-bubbl][web-icon-g][web-icon-u][web-icon-s] * Products * Solutions * Training & services * Resources * Partners * About Menu Search For you Contact us English Log in * Products * Solutions * Training & services * Resources * Partners * About * Contact us Select a language * Jian Ti Zhong Wen * English * Francais * Deutsch * Italiano * Ri Ben Yu * hangugeo * Portugues * Espanol Red Hat blog Blog menu Latest posts By product * Red Hat Enterprise Linux * Red Hat Insights * Red Hat OpenShift * Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform * Red Hat OpenStack Platform * Red Hat Cloud Storage and Data Services * All products By channel * Red Hat News * Red Hat Services Speak * Cloud native computing * Red Hat Security * Open Hybrid Cloud * Management and automation * All channels --------------------------------------------------------------------- Fastest road from CentOS Linux to Red Hat Enterprise Linux April 4, 2023Eric Hendricks Share * Back to all posts Tags:Platform --------------------------------------------------------------------- June 30th, 2024. Before you read anything else, commit that date to memory. June 30th, 2024, will bring the End of Life (EOL) of CentOS Linux, and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 (RHEL 7) will be reaching End of Maintenance (EOM). The good news is that these events won't require a complete infrastructure overhaul. Tools are available to move from your current configuration to a place where you'll have years of support. While June of '24 may sound a ways off, do not delay. It will be here faster than you think. Start planning now. Start moving soon. Give yourself plenty of runway, and don't forget that we aren't just your software vendor at Red Hat. We are your partners and are here to help you with these transitions. If you're like me when looking at a long-term, intensive project, some time is required to stare at a blank screen and process the task before me. Let me see if I can help drive you into action. The hard way In my days as a systems administrator, we didn't consider in-place conversions or upgrades. For one thing, it wasn't the straightforward process we have today. Secondly, new operating systems and hardware retirements went hand in hand. New OS? Time for a new server model! There are specific environments where that is the case. You can certainly buy new hardware (or spin up new cloud instances) on the latest versions of RHEL and do a "rip-and-replace," moving over only your application data. But for many, this isn't an ideal approach. What other options are there? If you want to keep your application on the same version and focus solely on the operating system for this project, you can do that too. Look at setting up a RHEL 8 or 9 server and running it as a container host for Podman. Put your applications into a container, and viola. You can build your applications into pre-built application images or Universal Base Images (UBI). However, this will require a fair amount of work as well. There is an easier way. In what amounts to a 2-phase process, we can convert your CentOS Linux systems onto a supported version of RHEL and then execute an in-place upgrade. Convert from CentOS Linux Pop Quiz: When does CentOS Linux 7.9 go EOL? If you said June 30th, 2024, then I can write the rest of this blog post feeling accomplished! Red Hat has created a way for users to move to a supported operating system in place using a supported process. Why in-place? Think of all the configurations, user home directories, processes and packages you already have running on these systems. An in-place upgrade means all that customization doesn't go away. The other piece of good news is that the conversion process and the resulting server image are both supported by Red Hat! In other words, if something breaks during or after the conversion, you can open a support ticket and get the help you need. Now, we are looking at the final days of CentOS Linux. You've got hundreds (or even thousands) of servers running various minor releases of CentOS Linux 7. Let's walk through what a conversion process looks like: 1. The first thing to do, if you are running anything older than CentOS Linux 7.9, is to upgrade all of your packages to the latest minor release. 2. Once you are running CentOS Linux 7.9 with all the packages on their latest available version, you can configure the convert2rhel repository. 3. Run the conversion! 4. Validate your applications and register your systems to Red Hat Insights. 5. Brace yourself-- we aren't done just yet. If you want to get your hands dirty, we have a Convert2RHEL lab on our website to try for yourself! In-place upgrade Time for a review! When does RHEL 7 go EOM? If you said June 30th, 2024, you nailed it! Now, you should be looking at a fleet of systems running RHEL 7.9. Perhaps you already had a group of systems running earlier releases of RHEL 7. Now would be an excellent time to patch those to the latest available package set and the recently converted CentOS Linux systems. Much like CentOS Linux, RHEL 7 has limited life left. Red Hat does offer Extended Lifecycle Support (ELS) subscriptions if that is a path of interest. However, these entitlements come with an added cost. For today's thought exercise, we are looking at how to keep your systems feeling fresh (read supported) without added expense or the need to rip-and-replace later. 1. Once the 'yum' command says there are no available packages left to update, your RHEL systems are ready to upgrade to the latest version of RHEL 8. 2. Install the Leapp tools. 3. Run the pre-upgrade assessment and remediate any identified issues. 4. Run the in-place upgrade. 5. Validate the upgraded systems and their applications. That is all there is to it! Sit back and take a deep breath. Even after June 2024, RHEL 8 will still have five years of maintenance support. If you'd like to try an in-place upgrade for yourself, we have a self-paced lab over on our website. Wrap up June 30th, 2024... Set a countdown on your phone. Put a reminder on your desktop. Grab a sticky note and put it on your mirror. Whatever you have to do. The date is rapidly approaching, and as a former sysadmin, I don't want to see you having to scramble at the last minute to find ways to support your systems. June 30th, 2024... My experiences were always building a new server, with a new OS, on a new hardware platform. In the perfect world that exists only in my imagination, I might consider one last full-scale replacement and go straight to RHEL 9, then keep pace with the in-place upgrades for RHEL 10 and beyond. Sadly, technology, applications, industries and organizations don't always march to that drum. Complex dependencies, processes and resource availabilities limit our ability to stay on the "latest and greatest." If that is the position you find yourself in, follow the links in this blog, watch our videos and engage our Support and Services organizations. Red Hat is your partner in this. Further reading * Converting from an RPM-based Linux distribution to RHEL * Upgrading from RHEL 7 to RHEL 8 --------------------------------------------------------------------- About the author Eric Hendricks, Technical Marketing Manager, Red Hat Eric Hendricks Senior Technical Marketing Manager Eric "The IT Guy" Hendricks is a Technical Marketing Manager for Red Hat Enterprise Linux, as well as the host of "Red Hat Enterprise Linux Presents," a podcaster, and open source advocate. Hendricks started out in 2007 as a Systems Administrator specializing in Linux before moving into technical marketing. Read full bio Enter keywords here to search blogs [ ] Search Subscribe to the feed Related posts * Strategies and solutions for business resilience: Disaster recovery * Discussing horizontal cloud and the edge with Nokia's Fran Heeran at Open5G * CentOS Linux is going End of Life, What does that mean for me? Red Hat logoLinkedInYouTubeFacebookTwitter Products * Red Hat Enterprise Linux * Red Hat OpenShift * Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform * Cloud services * See all products Tools * My account * Training and certification * Customer support * Developer resources * Learning community * Red Hat Ecosystem Catalog * Find a partner Try, buy, & sell * Product trial center * Red Hat Marketplace * Red Hat Store * Buy online (Japan) * Console Communicate * Contact sales * Contact customer service * Contact training * Social About Red Hat We're the world's leading provider of enterprise open source solutions--including Linux, cloud, container, and Kubernetes. We deliver hardened solutions that make it easier for enterprises to work across platforms and environments, from the core datacenter to the network edge. Select a language #English * Jian Ti Zhong Wen * English * Francais * Deutsch * Italiano * Ri Ben Yu * hangugeo * Portugues * Espanol Red Hat legal and privacy links * About Red Hat * Jobs * Events * Locations * Contact Red Hat * Red Hat Blog * Diversity, equity, and inclusion * Cool Stuff Store * Red Hat Summit Red Hat legal and privacy links * Privacy statement * Terms of use * All policies and guidelines * Digital accessibility *