Central Server on Redhat-ish platforms

[mbert]

It looks like the Central Server is not available for Redhat-based platforms right now. Is there any technical reason for this? I.e. would this require significant changes beyond producing RPM packages and adapting ansible automation? As far as the latter is concerned I might have a go at this, because in our environment we are on Redhat-based platforms only, and running Ubuntu is something I'd really like to avoid (ops, support, ...), and docker would be a solution but again add complexity when all the rest is installed on the OS.

[petkivim]

Yes, it's correct - the Central Server and Configuration proxy are not available for RedHat, only Ubuntu 18 and 20 are supported. There's no technical reason why the central components couldn't support RedHat. As so far supporting RedHat hasn't been required by the NIIS members and therefore, it has been decided to limit the support on Ubuntu only.

All the supported platforms and their combinations must be tested as a part of the development process and supporting additional platforms makes the process more complicated and time consuming. Therefore, we're trying to keep the number of supported platforms to a minimum. Currently, there are no plans on adding RedHat support for the Central Server and Configuration proxy. However, it doesn't mean that it couldn't happen sometime in the future since needs and priorities can always change.

[mbert]

So if I understand correctly, me doing the technical part and creating a pull request would not help us too much now, since all the rest would have to be on your side, and without real need this would not get prioritised?

[petkivim]

Yes, that's the situation currently. Last year RedHat support for the Central Server was offered as a contribution, but it wasn't approved back then for the reasons explained above. However, I'll keep the Working Group informed about the topic.