Lansweeper's scans of its customers' networks have revealed many Linux machines nearing the end of their lifecycle, with no straightforward upgrade path.

Lansweeper, a Belgian corporate network scanner provider, regularly gathers and shares user statistics. This year's report indicates that while one-third of its users' Linux machines are running Ubuntu, CentOS Linux takes second place with 26.05 per cent.

In 2020, Red Hat announced the early end of life for CentOS Linux 8, moving it from 2029 to the end of 2021. CentOS Linux 9 was cancelled, and CentOS Linux 8 has been discontinued, leaving only CentOS Linux 7, which is approaching its end of life at the end of June. After this month, there will be no further updates. It's crucial to act swiftly to ensure the security and stability of your network.

Red Hat offers assistance migrating to RHEL, including a free tool to change the package source for boxes. However, RHEL 7 will enter what Red Hat calls "the end of its maintenance support 2 phase" on the same day. RHEL 7 isn't at the end of life yet, but additional fees for "Extended Lifecycle Support (ELS)" will be required to continue receiving security updates.

Lansweeper is optimistic, stating: "Assuming most of the CentOS devices will migrate to RHEL, we can comfortably expect RHEL to take over first place from Ubuntu soon."

 RHEL is already present on 20 per cent of the machines scanned by Lansweeper, with Rocky Linux at 1.5 per cent.