SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 8 enters Extended Maintenance

Hi,

With the release of a Squid security fix on December 30 2007 we have
entered a new maintenance phase for the SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 8
(SLES 8) line of products.

Following product life time changes become active as of now:

1. Extended Maintenance for a SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 8 subset

   Following subset of products have now entered extended maintenance:

   - SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 8 for x86 (Intel 32bit)
   - SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 8 for IBM S/390 and IBM zSeries (S/390 31bit)

   Using this maintenance extension requires an additional subscription.

   The conditions and how-to-buy for the extension are shown in the
   following 2 page document:


http://www.novell.com/rc/docrepository/public/14/basedocu...

   To migrate your machine to SLES 8 Extended Maintenance, replace in the files:
   	/var/adm/YaST/ProdDB/prod_*
   the line (if present):
   	=YouPath: i386/update/SuSE-SLES/8
   by:
   	=YouPath: i386/update/SuSE-SLES/8-EXTENDED
   (replace i386 by s390 for the the S/390 version).


2. End of Life for the rest of the SLES 8 architectures

   Following products have reached End of Life, support for them is
   discontinued and no more updates will be published for them:

   - SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 8 for AMD64 (AMD 64bit)
   - SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 8 for IPF (Intel Itanium)
   - SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 8 for IBM zSeries (IBM zSeries 64bit)
   - SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 8 for IBM iSeries and IBM pSeries (IBM PowerPC)


Currently the following additional SUSE Linux Enterprise Server products exist
and are in maintenance (regular / extended maintenance):

	- SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9	(regular maintenance until July 30th 2009)
	- SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10	(regular maintenance until July 31st 2011)

Please see the product lifecycle page at http://support.novell.com/lifecycle/
for more information.



So lets take a look back at the history of SLES 8...

SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 8 was released end of October 2002, making its
regular maintenance lifetime 5 years.

SLES 8 was based on the UnitedLinux development also done by SUSE which
was a cooperation between SUSE, Caldera, Connectiva and TurboLinux.

The Linux kernel was originally 2.4.19, but was upgraded to 2.4.21 base with
Service Pack 3.

Some statistics regarding our online updates:

Total:			696 (367 active)
	Security:	517 (251 active)
	Recommended:	156 (104 active)
	Optional:	 21 ( 12 active)
	YAST:		  2 (  0 active)

Top issues (with 5 or more updates):
     32 kernel
     26 mod_php4
     20 ethereal
     14 mozilla
     13 samba
     13 cups
     11 squid
      9 openssl
      9 mysql
      8 sendmail
      8 openssh
      8 cyrus-imapd
      7 libpng
      7 heimdal
      7 gpg
      7 cvs
      6 xshared
      6 timezone
      6 rsync
      6 openldap2
      5 tcpdump
      5 snort
      5 ruby
      5 qt3
      5 mc
      5 libtiff
      5 laus
      5 java2
      5 fetchmail
      5 dhcp-server
      5 bind9
      5 apache

Ciao, Marcus
-- 
Working, but not speaking, for the following german company:
SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, GF: Markus Rex, HRB 16746 (AG Nuernberg)