---
title: "CentOS: A General Overview"
description: "CentOS is popular for those needing a professional server operating system (OS) like well-respected Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) but without commercial support. Though both are built upon the..."
url: https://www.inmotionhosting.com/support/edu/software/centos-server-overview/
date: 2018-10-29
modified: 2021-07-16
author: "InMotion Hosting Contributor"
categories: ["Software"]
type: post
lang: en
---

# CentOS: A General Overview

[**CentOS**](https://www.centos.org/) is popular for those needing a professional server operating system (OS) like well-respected Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) but without commercial support. Though both are built upon the Linux Fedora OS, CentOS is a free community-driven rebuild of Red Hat started in March 2004. There isn’t a set duration between new version releases but CentOS recommends full backups and fresh installations to new versions. CentOS 6 receives updates until November 2020.

CentOS supports encryption and scaling from one to more servers. Those interested can **learn more about CentOS** with free edX courses such as “Introduction to Red Hat” and “Introduction to Linux.”

### Supported File Systems

According to Red Hat documentation, CentOS supports the following file systems: ext3, ext4, global file system 2, XFS, NFS, and FS-Cache.

### Package Management for CentOS

CentOS uses the **Yellowdog Update Modified (YUM)** package management tool to manage software. Among other things, YUM can install, update, query, and search YUM and **Red Hat Package Management (RPM)** packages. RPM is the package management tool of parent OS Red Hat.

**Note:** VPS users can view their version in the upper-right corner of WHM and using the following command in SSH:

cat /etc/redhat-release

### Init System for CentOS

The Init process is the first process executed when starting CentOS 6. CentOS 7 uses systemd.

## Other CentOS Install Options and Architectures

CentOS supports Metal as a Service (MAAS), allowing you to deal with servers as a whole instead of individually and support another OS such as Ubuntu Server and Windows. It also supports OpenStack.

### Other Resources

- IRC-based support
- CentOS on DistroWatch
- Red Hat training at edX.org

Learn more from our [Cloud Server Hosting Product Guide](https://www.inmotionhosting.com/support/product-guides/cloud-server/).

If you don’t need cPanel, don’t pay for it. Only pay for what you need with our scalable [Cloud VPS Hosting](https://www.inmotionhosting.com/cloud-vps).

![check mark](https://design.inmotionhosting.com/assets/icons/standard/check-blue.svg)CentOS, Debian, or Ubuntu ![check mark](https://design.inmotionhosting.com/assets/icons/standard/check-blue.svg)No Bloatware ![check mark](https://design.inmotionhosting.com/assets/icons/standard/check-blue.svg)SSH and Root Access