Binary compatibility of RHEL5.5 and RHEL 6.2

Question

I have my product binary built on the RHEL5.5 and my customer is having 6.2. Just want to know the compatibility between these two version. Can we ship the binary to customer?

Thanks

Comments

RHEL 5.x and RHEL 6.x are two different tree. Your app needs to test
and if it pass then you install that.

Answer 1

Short answer is maybe. You need to find out what libraries your binary links against and see if there are compatibility changes.

If you don't have a redhat 6.x license you could spin up a version of CentOS (or of the other free versions based off of redhat) and compile it there.

There's binary compatibility between RHEL and CentOS at the same version levels.

Answer 2

There is no guarantee. In fact this is always a challenge and here is where apps based on scripting languages have an advantage. Many open source applications provide binaries for a few distributions and provide source for the rest. For closed source, this is not an option and they support few distributions alone.

Answer 3

It may or may not work...there are differences in libraries and other items. Your best bet, if you wish to support your customers, is to also compile it for RHEL 6.x.

Otherwise, you can tell your customer that, at present, your product is not certified for RHEL 6 and leave it at that (though this will not generate much in the way of good will on your customer's part).