XCP-ng future and XOA question

Hello,

Since a couple of weeks I use XCP-ng. I really like it. But what is XCP-ng going to do with the EOL of Centos7? I’ve found this post on the xcp-ng forums, but it’s already 6 months old.

As I already explained in different places, what matters is the hypervisor, kernel, OVS and such important packages. We can still backport security fixes ourselves on various packages inside the OS.

XCP-ng is only partially based on CentOS, only using non-critical CentOS packages (NOT the kernel, NOT Xen, NOT OVS, SMAPI/XAPI aren’t packaged in CentOS etc.).

XCP-ng is NOT your regular distro, it’s an appliance where we backport relevant security fixes.

Be sure that next major version won’t even have SSH access enabled by default.

They are able to backport relevant security fixes, but for how long?

Another question. I’ve 3 XCP-ng hosts, 2 at home and 1 on an external location. I’ve installed xoa on one of the hosts at home. I want to add the external host to xoa, but without exposing it to the internet. Is it possible to add the external host if I use something like netbird?

As long as they need to. They have the staff and expertise.

Yes, XO works fine over a VPN and should work fine over Netbird.

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Would it then be safe to say that XCP-NG is its own distribution or OS? If they are maintaining the kernel portion, doesn’t that then qualify as an OS?

I would say it’s their own OS/Distro/Appliance not based on just maintaining the kernel, but because on they completely control the repository. It’s locked to only get updates from Vates by default with only the software they allow in there.

But it is centos 7 though. They just continue to maintain it.

I would call it more “Based on CentOS” as they don’t offer the full repository.

The issue for me with it being based on EL7 is that vendors like dell have dropped support so you can’t get an updated version of their openmanage software (which my company wants installed on all hosts) onto xcp-ng. There are tricks to make it work but for how long.

Can’t even install the iDRAC service module right now.

I love the platform but am hopeful a new LTS version based on EL8 or 9 comes around soon.

Is that something worth discussing with Vates (XCP-NG) to see if their team can come up with a solution?

8.3 beta is still based on EL7 as far as I can tell, though I thought I read something about trying to move it to EL8 in a near future alpha/beta??? I might not be remembering correctly, but I thought I read something about this for around the end of 2024.

Like Tom said, Vates will have to write their own drivers and whatnot. They have basically taken EL7 and made it their own.

Again they aren’t following the centos train. They have taken EL7 and they themselves will be applying their own patches and updates to the OS. Pretty much forking it.