This distribution is based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux

Sep 30, 2014 13:19 GMT  ·  By

Johnny Hughes has just announced that the new CentOS 5.11, for both the 32-bit and 64-bit architectures, is now available for download.

As you all know already, CentOS is an Enterprise-class Linux Distribution derived from sources provided by Red Hat. This is the eleventh update for the distribution and probably the last one. It features all the packages from all variants, including Server and Client, and the upstream repositories have been merged into a single one.

Red Hat announced less than a month ago the release of their last update for Red Hat Enterprise Linux, 5.11. It stands to reason that CentOS 5.11 will also be the last update in the series.

CentOS 5.11 brings lots of upstream updates

As it was to be expected, much of this latest update for CentOS stems from upstream packages from Red Hat. There is nothing that really stands out and it should be a straightforward upgrade procedure for users of this particular distribution.

"The bash version included on the CentOS-5.11 ISOs is a version that contains the shellshock vulnerability. When we create CentOS Linux ISOs, we try to mirror the same package versions that are on the upstream ISOs from Red Hat, whose ISOs also contain that vulnerability. An updated bash is available as a zero day update in the 5.11 updates repo now. Please run 'yum update bash' after install. There is also an Important nss security update that must be installed after using this ISO set," reads the announcement.

It's also possible to upgrade the operating system via the regular process. All you have to do is to open a terminal and enter this command (root is a must):

code
yum update
"Running 'yum list updates' before doing the update is recommended, so you can get a list of packages that are going to be updated. To check you are indeed on CentOS-5.11, run : 'rpm -q centos-release' and that should return: 'centos-release-5-11.el5.centos'," also explain the developers.

Even if it's an old operating system, users are still advised to report any problems they encounter so that the developer can patch things up as soon as possible.

A complete list of changes can be found in the official announcement. You can download CentOS 5.11 right now from Softpedia. Please keep in mind that this is not a Live CD. That means that you have to install it in order to see it in action, but this installation image can also be used to upgrade an existing one.