Container Deprecation

While we endeavour to support container images for as long as reasonable, there comes a time for any image where we need to make the decision to drop support. Usually, this comes about as upstream applications lose support (e.g. when a service image like Postgres 12 goes end-of-life), or when we're no longer able to support the application with updates (when we overhaul our container base to Ubuntu Noble, and ElasticSearch 2 is not supported on the newer version).

When this time comes, we'll deprecate the image. When you inspect the container in the SiteHost Control Panel, you'll see an extra flag under the container image:

For now, this will also lock your container to the existing version. If you'd like to upgrade to a newer container (e.g. from PHP 5.6 to PHP 7.4), you'll need to get in contact with us.

Your Container isn't going anywhere, anytime soon.

The important thing to keep in mind is that deprecated containers aren't removed. You can keep these containers for as long as you want, and you can still clone them and perform normal container functions such as restarting the container and editing environment variables.

However, while we're not going to remove your container, there are some limitations to keep in mind:

• You can't change the container image. We'll likely enable this in the near future for images with an upgrade path, but for now, drop us an email if you need to change it. Alternatively, you can create a new container and move your data across.
• Your container is no longer getting updates - including security patches. While under certain circumstances, such as an end-of-life severe CVE being patched, we might make exceptions for this, you should treat these containers as vulnerable. We recommend looking into upgrading them wherever possible.
• Our container support becomes more limited once a container is deprecated. While we'll often push quality-of-life updates to current Cloud Container images, especially for issues highlighted by customers, we generally won't do the same for a deprecated image.

Finally, every few years we perform a major overhaul on the Cloud Container platform to ensure it's up to date with security and performance patches. Often, this has no bearing on your containers - after all, it's an isolated solution. However, because this overhaul often involves major upgrades of the software underlying Cloud Containers, we cannot guarantee perpetual support for deprecated containers. During overhauls, we sometimes need to rebuild Container images. If this occurs, and your container image is deprecated, it's likely it will be omitted and, during the overhaul process, will be disabled. If we encounter this scenario, we will get in touch with customers well in advance to advise you of the situation.