Could we have a visual / colour indicator for EoL status of the operating system in the Virtualmin Dashboard, like there is for Webmin version, Virtualmin version, Usermin version and Theme version?
Quite simply, if the OS is EoL, show it in red.
#FeatureRequest
Thatās a good idea. Iām not sure how weād implement it in a reliable way. I think apt will say something about it on apt update, but itās in a mess of text, Iām not confident itās always the exact same phrase in every EOL version or that itāll stay the same.
I guess we could maintain our own list of EOL operating systems, but Iām sure weād occasionally be a little behind, since I donāt monitor it super closely.
Iāll think on it.
You could pull the info from places like https://endoflife.software/ or https://endoflife.date/ (has an API too).
I like this idea too! @Jamie letās just make a list of EOL OS (at least some, Grade A in Virtualmin for starters) and just push a notification to the Dashboard a few months before EOL and make it dismissible.
Yeah, I wouldnāt want to pull from a third party on every client machine, but we could build our own static text list hosted on one of our servers from an API, and update it every week or whatever (EOL dates donāt change often, though Debian historically sort of vaguely moves around based on when the next new release is readyā¦the commercial distros have fixed dates that rarely change).
Yeah, though I donāt think we even need to pull it remotely. EOL is really not changing more often than Webmin releases, so I think it should be a simple local file.
Yeah I think this is a good idea. The question is where to store it ā¦ simplest would be a simple text file per distro thatās part of Virtualmin containing the support status like :
os_name=Debian Linux
os_version=13.0
status=supported
eol=12-12-2025
Only hard part would be creating all those files!
I think we should store it in Webmin, in os_list_eol.txt file.
ā¦ or perhaps in os_list.txt itself as the last parameter.
os_list.txt would explode in complexity. It doesnāt currently keep up with every single releaseā¦only the ones that change something Webmin cares about.
A separate EOL file is right. How to generate itā¦this API Steini linked above looks perfect: endoflife.date API Documentation -
The āget all detailsā endpoint is everything about each OS they track in a JSON file per OS.
That could work, although weād need to map between the distro names used by that API and the ones Webmin uses.
@Joe, The real thing is that detect_operating_system() is already reading os_list.txt and updates /etc/webmin/config with real_os_type, os_type, os_version, etc. Additionally, a lot has been done around this subroutine, which is called from get_webmin_notifications, already part of the status collection that involves caching, and much more! Therefore, I believe we should just add OS Active Support as parameter #6 and Security Support as parameter #7 to os_list.txt file, and store it in /etc/webmin/config with os_eol_active and os_eol_security keys, using the standard SQL date format.
@Jamie, Iāll go check how we can automate this and send you a PR.
What I said is true though, youāre right, there is no need to store it in os_list.txt file.
Implemented here:
Thanks, I will take a look at your PR!
@calport How about this? Is it good enough?
Or should we also add an alert message?
Also, it will be possible to configure how many months before the EOL message is shown, e.g.:
Hi Illia
First warning is enough (screen shot)ā¦ no one is going to go reading about how long before EOL on a page I have never visited in the 10 plus years we been running Virtualmin
Thanks
Michael
I think this is just right. An alert message is a one time deal, this is a constant reminder to be a good server guy but is not in your face.
3 month for the warning in red, maybe from 6 months out use an orange colour for defaults. This obviously require 2 settings.
Being able to set these time is a good idea for those who like to be proactive.
Thank you very much @Ilia and the Virtualmin team. This is most satisfactory and will be of help to users to plan ahead for upgrades.
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