Correct but as I at least tried to explain early it is much closer to RHEL than Fedora. Fedora is (more) independent from RHEL, see it as a development platform for the next RHEL release where Red Hat can monitor how upstream software is developing and decide which version is stable enough when time comes to create next RHEL release. CentOS Stream is the direct upstream for RHEL, it is lacking the full QA and certification system of RHEL, but if it is not stable building RHEL packages with API/ABI compatibility through the release cycle would not work. So I tread CentOS Stream as release candidate for RHEL, not rock solid but stable.
Yes for working as you are just rebuilding with the same instructions used for all rpm and it is the same software used regarding the use case, but no for supported as in supported by the Icinga Project, so mostly important for customers of Icinga or partners, not for community.
Again yes for working (ok, only 99% sure), no for supported.
@dgoetz I think weâre saying the same thing there, albeit your information is far more detailed and complete.
The part that I donât quite understand is that:
Since NETWAYS/Icinga2 supports Fedora publicly and supports RHEL via subscription, I donât understand what the technical challenge with supporting CentOS Stream is. From what Iâve seen, the biggest wildcard is that CentOS Stream is now upstream. The fact that Fedora is already supported (and hence supportable) and CentOS Stream should be easier/more consistent/more stable and closer to RHEL which is being built for already seems to greatly remove those concerns.
Of course Iâd love to not have to guess and speculate as to the future plans NETWAYS/Icinga2 has.
This has nothing to do with NETWAYS, Icinga as a project and company is independent for a long while now and NETWAYS is only a partner. It may not look like this when both the Icinga GmbH and the NETWAYS Group with all daughters have the same address and owners from the outside, but I can tell you for sure we (as NETWAYS Professional Services GmbH) are not involved in decisions like this, in some cases we are asked for opinion like any other partner but that is all.
Perhaps they are separate legal entities (Iâm not really too interested in that). Looking at the people listed as members of the Icinga organization on github and those with commit/merge permissions, many seem to be NETWAYS employees. Have any decision makers commented on this thread or this topic in general?
Continuously delivered distro that tracks just ahead of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) development, positioned as a midstream between Fedora Linux and RHEL.
So in my opinion itâs more complacted to build stable packages for a âdevelopment OSâ like Fedora, than for CentOS wich is such ahead of RHEL.
When currently (and in the future) there are no packages for CentOS Stream, what would you recommend to a user with hundreds of CentOS Stream servers? Monitor them with other tools?
I think the goal of monitoring software should be to support as many operating systems as possible.
I understand you are dissatisfied, but please try to understand my point. You moved your server to an operating system for which we donât provide official packages. It would have been possible to check that upfront before migrating, but shit happens and it seems like you expected Icinga to âjust workâ on CentOS Stream.
Of course we are interested in supporting as many operating systems as possible. Of course we would like to have packages for CentOS Stream, AlmaLinux, RockyLinux, OracleLinux, CloudLinux, AIX, Solaris and many many more. We get requests to build Icinga for many different systems regularly and we would love to do so for each of them.
In reality we cantât have everything, because it costs real money for human and technical resources. Therefore we have to prioritize and decide very carefully. Spending resources needs to be justified like in every other organization. Taking the efforts to add new operating systems to our pipelines is not just a one time effort, we have to carefully track updates for that systems to make sure our packages work in the long term and for every upcoming version of that operating system.
Furthermore, itâs not just about Icinga 2 and itâs dependencies. Packaging affects also Icinga Web and the whole Icinga PHP library, including third party libraries. It includes testing and quality assurance for each and every minor and major version of every operating system we currently support. Additionally, many users would benefit from packages for Icinga Modules as well, which we currently donât have either. Aggregated, itâs one full time employee taking care only about the packaging we have right now, additional future packages not included.
My point is: Itâs not that we donât want to build Icinga for CentOS Stream and other systems. The long term effort has to be justifiable.
The whole situation with the operating systems related to RHEL is very nebulous right now and we depend on feedback from users and customers in order to decide how to move forward. Therefore, discussions like these are beneficial, even if they donât result in actions right away.
There are different options for users that want to monitor an operating system for which we donât build official packages (yet):
Use packages from the community, where available (such as FreeBSD, ArchLinux, Gentoo, âŠ)
I can understand that Icinga is looking for a way to make money with their product. We all know that development is not without cost and that it can be difficult for open source projects to get funded.
The decision not to support CentOS Stream (for masters and satellites) I can understand. What I find extremely unfortunate is how the whole thing has been communicated. The information that CentOS Stream is not supported came as a blog post not until 16.02.2022, so already after the support end of Centos 8. At that time, the discontinuation of non-Stream was already 14 months known. Since CentOS was still listed among the supported operating systems, I can totally understand that users assumed that CentOS Stream is supported.
For me, open and honest communication is very important.
Blaming people for taking a path to migrate their OS to a supported version while Icinga has not communicated clearly their future intentions (blog post) seems in poor taste for this discussion. I am not trying to argue why some may have chosen to go directly to CentOS Stream, but from some of the comments it seems like comparing CentOS Linux with CentOS Stream is like comparing carbon-based lifeforms with silicon-based lifeforms. Install a package and run dnf distro-sync seems much less substantial (I understand it moved from downstream to upstream.)
I would be curious to see if anyone has seen other projects stop building packages for CentOS. Icinga may be the only one I have encountered (presumptions required), not to say there may not be others out there.
For supported OSâs per Icingaâs language (which includes CentOS - no differentiation between CentOS Linux and CentOS Stream), Icinga software is licensed without warranty. Is Icinga offering a warranty for the OSâs it builds packages for beyond the softwareâs license? Will Icinga/NETWAYS refuse to fix/merge/commit code to resolve issues in a distribution that is not âsupportedâ (assuming, of course, it would not cause other issues, specifically with âsupportedâ distributions)?
Hypothetically, as I have stated I do not have much experience in the realm of packaging, etc, for Icinga to support both Fedora and RHEL - what dependencies would be pulled in that would make supporting CentOS Stream more difficult? I am not suggesting itâs impossible, but it seems unlikely and there would need to be a specific need for Icinga to require such a specific version of another library, etc. that is available in Fedora and RHEL, but not CentOS Stream.
It actually seems it would be in both Icinga and NETWAYSâ best interest to support CentOS Stream moving forward, as it is essentially the RC for RHEL, which is a revenue generating package. This would increase the informal test user base of the same build chain and help facilitate a more stable subscription package.
I believe Red Hat has been clear regarding this change. Perhaps someone can help me understand what is still ânebulous.â Or better yet we can help solve issues as a Community? Members of the Icinga Community may also be able to reach out to Red Hat regarding any specific questions or concerns.
Accessed today:
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Blerim has been with NETWAYS since 2013 and has been around the company a lot since then.
Thanks for your answer Blerim.
You write that you are waiting for feedback from the community so that you can make decisions regarding create packages for operating systems. Wouldnât it be useful to start a survey and involve the community more?
I think there are many Icinga users who have migrated from CentOS 7/8 to CentOS Stream. However, many of them will not have noticed that they will no longer receive update packages.
We really need Icinga packages for CentOS Stream. Sure, I could subscribe and use the RHEL packages. But then I pay for it and donât even have the guarantee that the packages will always work on CentOS Stream.