<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
<meta content="text/html;charset=ISO-8859-1" http-equiv="Content-Type">
</head>
<body bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000">
Jos Vos wrote:
<blockquote cite="mid:20081202093906.GA6968@jasmine.xos.nl" type="cite">
<pre wrap="">On Tue, Dec 02, 2008 at 09:18:25AM +0000, <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:A.L.M.Buxey@lboro.ac.uk">A.L.M.Buxey@lboro.ac.uk</a> wrote:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">it would help immensely if Fedora, RHEL, CentOS et al actually
supplied up to date version of FreeRADIUS - ie at least 2.0.5
(if not 2.1.1 !) rather than the historic 1.1.x (or even 1.0.x!)
if such a version was available via yum/up2date then almost
all queries for how to build source on such distros would
disappear
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap=""><!---->
OK, I can't resist reacting again:
RHEL (and thus CentOS) are conservative "enterprise" distros and thus
do *not* include the newest ("bleeding edge") release of everything
as soon as it comes out. They want to stay compatible through the
7 (!) years of support time. This is how it is and this is, in
principle, a good idea (for that purpose). Exceptions are made
(Firefox 3 is included now) and security bugs are fixed via backports.
But if FreeRADIUS would be bumped to a higher release, there will
probably be incompatibilities that are, in principe, not acceptable.
Fedora has a different policy and *does* include recent releases *now*
(in fact, these RPMs were built on November 25): F9 *and* F10 have 2.2.1.
If you have the need for a newer release on RHEL/CentOS, the best
recipe is to take a Fedora src.rpm and rebuild it on your RHEL/CentOS
version. This might require some changes (and some knowledge about
RPM and other things).
Packaging software for a distro means *integrating* the software in
the distro (examples are changes to init scripts, compliance with
local packaging standards, etc.) so it's better to start with the
Fedora package, being part of the "Red Hat family of distros", than
with the generic FreeRADIUS RPM (this applies to almost all software).
B.t.w. if there is the need for a more "neutral" version of this story
for a FAQ or wiki, I'm happy to write that. It's really important that
people understand the philosophy of distros.
</pre>
</blockquote>
Thank you Jos, this is a very good explanation. I tried to allude to
the philosophy of the different distributions but was too brief for it
to be clear. I'll update the FAQ and if you don't mind I'll borrow some
of your words. Please feel free to update the wiki yourself (you'll
have to request a wiki account) or send it to me directly.<br>
<br>
It really is critical folks understand the philosophy of the
RHEL/CentOS distributions, it drives many of the release decisions.<br>
<br>
The current version of FreeRADIUS in RHEL5/CentOS is 1.1.3. It is very
unlikely the 1.1.3 version will ever be removed from RHEL5 because of
the commitment for version stability in an enterprise distribution. On
the other hand we recognize peoples desire for a more current (e.g.
2.1) version of FreeRADIUS in RHEL5. The only way that can happen is
for us to provide a new FreeRADIUS package under a new and different
name because it cannot replace the existing 1.1.3 FreeRADIUS package. I
am working to make this happen, but because this is an exception to the
rules of the distribution it requires a fair amount of management
buy-in and sheparding through a convoluted set of procedures. I cannot
make a promise this will happen but I'm trying to get this approved for
the RHEL 5.4 update which is still a fair ways out.<br>
<br>
In the mean time, RHEL/CentOS user's most productive course of action
if they want a 2.1 version of FreeRADIUS is to build the RPM's
themselves on their RHEL/CentOS systems. This is one of the reasons I
wrote the FAQ, to provide you with instructions on how to build the
RPM's yourself.<br>
<br>
HTH,<br>
<br>
John<br>
<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
John Dennis <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:jdennis@redhat.com"><jdennis@redhat.com></a>
</pre>
</body>
</html>