[rad] Re: pseudo-newbie exec scripts and session-time

[John Dennis]

On 06/12/2009 01:23 AM, Alan DeKok wrote:
> Charles Gregory wrote:
>> But CentOS is
>> supposedly still a 'supported' OS, so I think it's fair to ask simple
>> 'how to' questions for that environment.
>
>    Centos supports their OS.  This list answers questions about FreeRADIUS.
>

Let's clarify something, calling CentOS a "supported" OS is a little 
misleading. Red Hat produces a commercial enterprise OS called RHEL (Red 
Hat Enterprise Linux). It's 100% open source, the source for it is 
freely available, but to get RHEL you must purchase a "subscription" 
which amongst other things provides you with support. Lot's of folks 
like the engineering and stability which Red Hat adds to RHEL, but they 
would prefer not to have to pay for a support subscription, thus CentOS 
was born. CentOS takes the fully open RHEL source, strips all the Red 
Hat branding from it, rebuilds it, and offers it for free download. 
That's all well and good, buts what's clearly missing in the CentOS 
model is support (unless you're willing to call the CentOS mailing lists 
and the CentOS bugzilla "support", but for most folks that does not 
constitute support).

You may be surprised to learn Red Hat has a positive and good 
relationship with CentOS. We believe they are contributing to the open 
source ecosystem we espouse. Generally myself and most other Red Hat 
engineers try to help CentOS users despite the obvious sidestepping of 
the subscription fee. We also believe when CentOS users come to believe 
having a support contract is in their best interest they will switch to 
RHEL, because they've effectively have been running RHEL, just without 
support.

So is CentOS supported? Not in my book, but we'll still try to help you 
(within limits, after which we'll politely suggest you pay for the 
support by becoming a RHEL customer). Make sense?

BTW, the philosophy of RHEL (why it's "older"), the philosophy of Fedora 
(why it's bleeding edge) and CentOS is explained on the FreeRadius FAQ 
under Red Hat (http://wiki.freeradius.org/Red_Hat_FAQ). It's incumbent 
upon you when selecting an OS to install to comprehend the associated 
issues of that choice.

>    And the 1.x versions are *not* supported by us.  When people ask
> questions about them, they get told to upgrade to 2.1.  The 1.x versions
> are over two years old.  Everything is easier and better in 2.1.


-- 
John Dennis <jdennis at redhat.com>

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