Release 8.5 with all updates?

Support
1

Hi,

I want 8.5 with all updates prior to release 8.6.
Is that possible and if so how ?

2

I am not sure if Alma supports EUS like RHEL. Even with that you will only get priority bug fixes and security patches.

3

The repos are under here, but remember that unlike EUS, there is NO support for any bugs, even critical security ones. If you are using 8.5 you should ensure that there is a VERY good firewall, preferably an airgap between your vulnerable insecure machine and the internet.

https://repo.almalinux.org/almalinux/8.5/

4

Well, the now unsupported 8.5 content has not been removed from all mirrors yet, so one could still use it. Perhaps create local clone of the repos and point the system to that.

There is no EUS for RHEL 8.5 either, so you would not stay on it even if you had money.

5

Cheers guys.

I’m not looking for EUS - just whatever was in 8.5 when the move to 8.6 took place.

Ammended /etc/yum.repos.d/almalinux.repo :

replaced

[baseos]
name=AlmaLinux $releasever - BaseOS
mirrorlist=https://mirrors.almalinux.org/mirrorlist/$releasever/baseos
# baseurl=https://repo.almalinux.org/almalinux/$releasever/BaseOS/$basearch/os/
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-AlmaLinux

[appstream]
name=AlmaLinux $releasever - AppStream
mirrorlist=https://mirrors.almalinux.org/mirrorlist/$releasever/appstream
# baseurl=https://repo.almalinux.org/almalinux/$releasever/AppStream/$basearch/os/
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-AlmaLinux

[extras]
name=AlmaLinux $releasever - Extras
mirrorlist=https://mirrors.almalinux.org/mirrorlist/$releasever/extras
# baseurl=https://repo.almalinux.org/almalinux/$releasever/extras/$basearch/os/
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-AlmaLinux

with

[baseos]
name=AlmaLinux 8.5 - BaseOS
baseurl=https://repo.almalinux.org/almalinux/8.5/BaseOS/x86_64/os/
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-AlmaLinux

[appstream]
name=AlmaLinux 8.5 - AppStream
baseurl=https://repo.almalinux.org/almalinux/8.5/AppStream/x86_64/os/
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-AlmaLinux

[extras]
name=AlmaLinux 8.5 - Extras
baseurl=https://repo.almalinux.org/almalinux/8.5/extras/x86_64/os/
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-AlmaLinux

and ran dnf update and that seems to have worked.

How long will https://repo.almalinux.org/almalinux/8.5 be available ?

1 Like
6

No idea. If you can make a local copy, then you don’t have to worry about that.

Can’t tell what 8.5 did require, but 8.6’s space usage should give a rough estimate:

$ du -d 1 -h almalinux.org/8.6
2.9G	almalinux.org/8.6/BaseOS
9.9G	almalinux.org/8.6/AppStream
13G	almalinux.org/8.6/PowerTools
736K	almalinux.org/8.6/extras
26G	almalinux.org/8.6
7

What are the files in the repo kickstart dirs for ?
Eg. https://repo.almalinux.org/almalinux/8.5/extras/x86_64/kickstart/Packages/

8

Here are timestamps from one of the Alma mirrors:

8.6/BaseOS/x86_64/kickstart/ 2022-05-11 19:33
8.6/BaseOS/x86_64/os/        2022-05-30 16:44

When Alma 8.6 was released, the ‘kickstart’ and ‘os’ were presumably identical.
The interim updates are added only to the ‘os’.

Hence you don’t need the kickstart directories. I forgot that they do exist – I rsync only the os paths.

AFAIK, the purpose of kickstart repo is to preserve the initial release version so that you can install exact same content to multiple systems. Without fear that repo content changes between installs. One obviously should use updates if any are available, but this repo arrangement does not force one.

Note that in EL7 the ‘base’ was like the EL8 ‘kickstart’ – the initial content – and the EL7 ‘updates’ had only packages added after release.

9

Cheers,

Had taken 'em both to begin with. Separated them out to check sizes :

# du -d 1 -h almalinux-os/8.5
17G     almalinux-os/8.5/AppStream
5.2G    almalinux-os/8.5/BaseOS
17G     almalinux-os/8.5/PowerTools
700K    almalinux-os/8.5/extras
39G     almalinux-os/8.5
# du -d 1 -h almalinux-ks/8.5
8.0G    almalinux-ks/8.5/AppStream
2.8G    almalinux-ks/8.5/BaseOS
4.6G    almalinux-ks/8.5/PowerTools
700K    almalinux-ks/8.5/extras
16G     almalinux-ks/8.5

Not mad about editing almalinux.repo as posted above. I did find a better way for redirecting:

echo '8.5' > /etc/dnf/vars/releasever (setting releasever in dnf.conf didn’t work)

and then uncomment the baseurl so it’ll use 8.5 mirrors if they exist but the baseurl if not

but I’m going to go with keeping/using the 8.5 repo locally (as I’ve got it) and redirect epel to the epel archives (as they’re probably on the big side and don’t look like they’re going anywhere).