[Sussex] Activating Red Hat Enterprise Linux

[Jon Fautley]

On Thu, 11 Oct 2007 19:40:26 +0100
"Nico Kadel-Garcia" <nkadel at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 10/11/07, Jon Fautley <jfautley at redhat.com> wrote:
> >
> > On Thu, 11 Oct 2007 13:36:34 +0100
> > Brendan Whelan <b_whelan at mistral.co.uk> wrote:
> >
> > > We ordered a RedHat Enterprise Linux license with an HP server
> > > but it it taking weeks to get the actual number. I therefore
> > > installed RHEL 5 on a server without using the installation
> > > number and have how obtained an evaluation number. Does any one
> > > know how I enter the number into the system? Thanks, Brendan
> >
> > Enter the activation code on the RHN website. Details should have
> > been provided when you got the eval code. Then use rhn_register to
> > register the system using your RHN account details.
> >
> > You could also raise a support case, and hassle HP to get your
> > activation code over to you ;)
> 
> 
> Yould also use CentOS in the short term, and switch over when the
> license is available. I've got tools for exactly that purpose if you
> want them.

I'd be interested to see how that works.

Firstly, a bit of background...

The "CentOS is RHEL" thing is a little misleading. You need to remember
that one of the really important parts of how a distribution is built
is the toolchain and build environment used to physically build the
packages.

CentOS have a different build environment to Red Hat (because ours is a
custom-developed, in house solution). As such, I do not believe that
CentOS can claim "100% Binary Compatibility" with RHEL. Sure, they use
the same packages (and make a few tweaks), but in terms of how the
packages are built, that's a whole different story.

(if you want to see how much difference a different toolchain can make,
I'm sure there's plenty of Gentoo ricers^Wusers that will be able to
explain it to you ;)

So...

This leads onto a bigger question - how do your 'migration tools' work?
If it's just a case of swapping out redhat-release, and installing
up2date/yum then this isn't going to wash with our support teams, I'm
afraid. You would need to reinstall *each and every package* on your
system to move from CentOS to a supported RHEL configuration. Sure, you
might have a CentOS 'apache' RPM on your system, that's built from
exactly the same source RPM as the RHEL version, but this is not going
to be supported by Red Hat because it's been rebuilt. Sorry :(

Just to explain my position, and where this email is coming from. This
is not a dig at anyone that wishes to use CentOS over RHEL, or wants to
migrate from one to the other (it's a damn sight easier to migrate to
CentOS from RHEL than the other way around).

Oh, and for any of the conspiracy theorists kicking around, this isn't
a dig at CentOS either. We love you guys :)

Just to prevent myself from being fired - the above is my personal
perception, and may be completely and utterly wrong. Any resemblence
to any product or person, living or dead, is purely coincidental. May
contain nuts. Choking hazard: Keep away from children under 36 months.
Not suitable for pregnant women or men with hair. No rights reserved.

Cheers,

/j
-- 
Jon Fautley RHCE, RHCX <jfautley at redhat.com> direct: +44 1252 362815
Technical Account Manager                    office: +44 1252 362700
Red Hat UK                                   mobile: +44 7841 558683
        200 Fowler Avenue, Farnborough, Hampshire, GU14 7JP
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