Out of all the operating systems available today there are a few users of RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux) derivatives who will be looking for their next step following the change to CentOS being an upstream provider, in the guise of CentOS Stream.
Firstly, a little bit about what upstream means. Basically packages are updated before Red Hat Enterprise Linux now, rather than after - meaning they haven't been road tested as they were previously.
Now, a bit about what is available. AlmaLinux is the product of CloudLinux™, a community-driven Linux Operating System primarily for use as an enterprise-grade Linux distribution. Like Rocky Linux, the goal of AlmaLinux is to remain 1-to-1 binary compatible with RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux).
CloudLinux™ is a powerful and versatile operating system to improve the performance and stability of websites and servers. It also offers a wide range of tools and features that optimizes website and server performance. In addition, it is based on the Linux kernel providing a more stable and secure environment for running servers and web applications.
CloudLinux™: What Do You Get?
For most users it's a no-brainer: use the free and open source option. However CloudLinux™ does offer some benefits that aren't seen in AlmaLinux or RockyLinux. See below.
- LVE and CageFS
- HardenedPHP
- SecureLinks
- MySQL Governor
- PHP, Python & Ruby Selector
- Mod_Lsapi
- PHP X-Ray
- Centralised Monitoring
LVE and CageFS CloudLinux™ virtualises each account. Each LVE has allotted some resources, such as memory, CPU, etc. With LVE, users cannot use more resources than they are given. This ultimately helps other websites to be secure and stable since other websites don’t get impacted in case of high traffic on a specific website. Rather than slowing down the whole server and causing any failure, only that particular LVE will slow down, not the entire server. In addition, LVE prevents attacks from stealing or hacking private information between the user and the server.
HardenedPHP HardenedPHP secures old and unsupported versions of PHP. In those old versions, including the widely used 7.2, 7.1, 7.0, and 5.6, vulnerabilities, even if discovered, are not patched by the PHP.net community. HardenedPHP takes care of all this.
SecureLinks Simply prevents symbolic-link style attacks at a kernel-level. Creating files in File Managers symbolicly-linked to /etc/passwd which isn't flagged by the manager is naturally prevented.
MySQL Governor MySQL is one of the main causes of issues on a shared server. MySQL Governor monitors MySQL usage and throttles abusers, preventing them from overloading the server, which improves overall stability and performance.
PHP, Python and Ruby Selectors As described, you can set a PHP, Python or Ruby version for each domain on your system. So using PHP8.0 and PHP7.4 on the same system is possible.
Mod_Isapi Mod_Isapi is the fastest and most reliable way to serve PHP pages. It is a drop-in replacement for SuPHP, FCGID, RUID2, and ITK. It has a low memory footprint and understands PHP directives from .htaccess files.
PHP X-Ray PHP X-Ray provides detailed information on performance bottlenecks that involve WordPress or PHP-based sites. If a site has sluggish plugins, database queries, functions, or external calls, this new tool helps pinpoint the underlying problem.
Centralised Monitoring Centralized Monitoring enables sysadmins to monitor all their servers, determine the load on each one, and identify the users creating the most load. If a domain is using an inordinate amount of CPU, memory, or disk resources, this tool helps bring it under control.
So, use CloudLinux?
Yes and no. Control panels are adopting the niche CloudLinux™ created by implementing user based resource controls technology that has been available since CentOS 6. User-based throttling is a reality for control panels such as DirectAdmin, for instance. Of course, this comes at a premium, but hey - take it or leave it!
To find out more about the projects, see their respective websites: CloudLinux™ AlmaLinux RockyLinux
– CloudLinux is on a mission to make Linux secure, stable, and profitable.
