Elastic Compute Service:Alibaba Cloud Linux 2 EOL guidance

EOL options

We strongly recommend that you migrate from Alibaba Cloud Linux 2 to a different operating system at the earliest opportunity to receive updates and security patches for the new operating system even though Alibaba Cloud Linux 2 is in the extended support phase.

Before the migration, assess the following methods that you can use to migrate from Alibaba Cloud Linux 2 to other operating systems:

• (Recommended) New deployment: This migration method allows you to create a new instance that runs a different operating system to replace an existing Alibaba Cloud Linux 2 instance or replace the operating system of an existing Alibaba Cloud Linux 2 instance with a different operating system. For more information, see Create an instance on the Custom Launch tab and Replace the operating system (system disk) of an instance.

  Important

  After you replace the operating system of an existing Alibaba Cloud Linux 2 instance, the original system disk of the instance is released and all data stored on the disk is deleted. Before you replace the operating system of an existing Alibaba Cloud Linux 2 instance, create snapshots for the system disk of the instance to back up disk data. For more information, see Create a snapshot for a disk.

  • Advantages and disadvantages: This migration method allows you to take advantage of the latest operating systems, hardware, technologies, and security updates to achieve better performance. This migration method also resolves all legacy issues to ensure long-term system health and maintainability. However, when you redeploy business, you may need to interrupt services, which affects service continuity.

  • Supported scenarios: If you want to redeploy your business environment due to the EOL of Alibaba Cloud Linux 2, you can use this migration method to migrate from Alibaba Cloud Linux 2 to a different operating system.

  • Supported alternative operating systems: You can select any other operating system as an alternative to migrate your Alibaba Cloud Linux 2 workloads.

  • Operations:

    1. Create an instance that runs a different operating system to replace an existing CentOS instance, or replace the operating system of an existing CentOS instance with a different operating system. For more information, see Create an instance on the Custom Launch tab and Replace the operating system (system disk) of an instance.

    2. After you create a replacement instance or replace the operating system, you must redeploy the business-related runtime environments that are deployed on the original CentOS instance on the replacement instance or the replacement operating system. For example, you must re-install software and repositories, such as Advanced Package Tool (APT) and Yellowdog Updater Modified (YUM) repositories, configure environment variables, and redeploy applications. You can perform the following steps:

       1. Collect the application and software information of the original CentOS instance and export critical application configurations and data files.

       2. Prepare the new instance (the replacement instance or the CentOS instance whose operating system you replaced). Re-install specific applications and software on the new instance based on the collected application and software information, import the exported application configurations and data files to the new instance, and then check whether the applications run as expected on the new instance.

       3. Stop application services on the original CentOS instance, synchronize application data to the new instance, verify that the services run on the new instance as expected, and then bring applications that are redeployed on the new instance online.

• In-place upgrade: This migration method allows you to perform an in-place upgrade or conversion by using specific tools to migrate from Alibaba Cloud Linux 2 to a different operating system. When you perform an in-place migration or conversion, all applications, user data, and system configurations are retained, which eliminates the need to redeploy environments or migrate data.

  • Advantages and disadvantages: This migration method can reduce initial configuration efforts and may inherit issues that the original CentOS operating systems encountered, such as security vulnerabilities and configuration errors. In-place upgrades are suitable for environments that have constrained resources, do not encounter major security or performance issues, and require quick upgrades.

  • Supported scenarios: If you want to retain the data of Alibaba Cloud Linux 2 instances and the alternative operating system supports in-place upgrades, you can use this migration method to migrate from Alibaba Cloud Linux 2 to the alternative operating system.

  • Supported alternative operating system: Alibaba Cloud Linux 3.

  • Operations:

    Source operating system	Destination operating system	References
    Alibaba Cloud Linux 2	Alibaba Cloud Linux 3	Migrate and upgrade the operating system of an ECS instance

References

• For information about the lifecycle plans of other operating systems that are released on the official websites of the operating systems, see Maintenance support for operating systems.

• For information about Alibaba Cloud Linux, see Alibaba Cloud Linux FAQ.

• Operating system features, performance optimizations, basic software package updates, and security patches may vary based on the Alibaba Cloud Linux version. For more information, see Release notes of images.