This howto will give you quick ways to determine the system you’re using, authentic Centos, or a data center clone.
Applicable to Centos Versions:
- Centos 5.x
- Centos 4.x
Requirements
Explanation of requirements.
- Access to a system you suspect has authentic Centos installed
- A desire to face the truth
Doing the Work
Basic description of what will be done and what is expected.
- A quick command sequence to determine if you’re using authentic Centos, anyone with a normal account on the system should be able to run these commands without trouble or special access:
- Your output should look nearly identical to this with, perhaps, a few minor differences:
- If your command output does not look anything like the above, if you are missing any of the above output, or you know for a fact you have a custom kernel, cPanel or some other control panel installed YOU ARE NOT RUNNING AUTHENTIC CENTOS no matter what your hosting company or data center says to you. Therefore, you cannot get official support for this for obvious reasons. No matter how sound you think your argument is, if you meet one of the above requirements official help via centos.org or the IRC channel is nullified:
lsb_release -a; uname -a; yum repolist all; ls -alsh /etc/yum.repos.d; cat /etc/redhat-release
LSB Version: :core-3.1-ia32:core-3.1-noarch:graphics-3.1-ia32:graphics-3.1-noarch Distributor ID: CentOS Description: CentOS release 5.2 (Final) Release: 5.2 Codename: Final Linux quetzal.mysite.com 2.6.18-92.1.13.el5 #1 SMP Wed Sep 24 19:33:52 EDT 2008 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux Loading "protect-packages" plugin Loading "security" plugin Loading "merge-conf" plugin Loading "protectbase" plugin Loading "fastestmirror" plugin Loading "priorities" plugin repo id repo name status addons CentOS-5 - Addons enabled base CentOS-5 - Base enabled c5-media CentOS-5 - Media disabled c5-testing CentOS-5 Testing disabled centosplus CentOS-5 - Plus disabled epel Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux 5 - enabled epel-debuginfo Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux 5 - disabled epel-source Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux 5 - disabled epel-testing Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux 5 - disabled epel-testing-debugin Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux 5 - disabled epel-testing-source Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux 5 - disabled extras CentOS-5 - Extras enabled rpmforge Red Hat Enterprise 5 - RPMforge.net - da disabled updates CentOS-5 - Updates enabled total 80K 8.0K drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4.0K Sep 29 17:07 . 16K drwxr-xr-x 96 root root 12K Oct 21 19:59 .. 8.0K -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2.1K Jun 19 06:48 CentOS-Base.repo 8.0K -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 626 Jun 19 06:48 CentOS-Media.repo 8.0K -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 710 Apr 17 2007 CentOS-Testing.repo 8.0K -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 953 Jun 11 08:48 epel.repo 8.0K -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1.1K Apr 25 11:08 epel-testing.repo 8.0K -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 684 Mar 8 2007 mirrors-rpmforge 8.0K -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 428 May 1 09:58 rpmforge.repo CentOS release 5.2 (Final)
Q: How did this happen?A: You were lied to or misled by the service provider or you did not correctly check your facts. Q: What can I do, I need to fix this problem ASAP?!A: Call or email your provider for their support options or reinstall your system with a known-goodcopy of Centos from any official Centos mirror. Q: It's close enough, why can't I get some help?A: Too many unknown changes have been made to the system. It's impossible to tell what has been alteredand to what extent. Therefore, it is not responsible to try and offer advice on something with unknownvariables or possible negative ramifications to your system.
Troubleshooting
How to test
Explanation troubleshooting basics and expectations.
- Hosting companies or cPanel will often alter or completely replace packages available in official default Centos software repositories:
- Paths or binary file names may be moved, altered or replaced entirely:
Some of these packages include: php, mysql, custom kernels, custom scripts, etc
Standard locations for normal system configuration files (such as: /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf) may bechanged, binary files could have been removed, have their default paths altered, or been renamed. It is improbable to determine each and every such alteration to the system. Once you notice too manythings out of line, it's best to just work with the system you have with the intended tools provided byyour hosting company, or if you want an official Centos release, reinstall the system locally (if youhave access) or remotely using VNC or another menthod.
Detailed information and further confirmation:
More Information
Disclaimer
We test this stuff on our own machines, really we do. But you may run into problems, if you do, come to #centos on irc.freenode.net
