Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is a commercial Linux distribution developed by Red Hat. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is released in server versions for x86-64, Power ISA, ARM64, and IBM Z and a desktop version for x86-64. Fedora Linux and CentOS Stream serve as its upstream sources. All of Red Hat's official support and training, together with the Red Hat Certification Program, focuses on the Red Hat Enterprise Linux platform.
The first version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux to bear the name originally came onto the market as "Red Hat Linux Advanced Server". In 2003, Red Hat rebranded Red Hat Linux Advanced Server to "Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS" and added two more variants, Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES and Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS.
As Red Hat Enterprise Linux is heavily based on open-source software and its source code is available to the public, it is used as the basis for several third-party derivatives, including the commercial Oracle Linux and the community-supported Rocky Linux and AlmaLinux. Prior to June 2023, Red Hat published a sub-set of Red Hat Enterprise Linux's source code to the public in the form of modified build artifacts. Today, the complete source code for the major-version branch is available in the form of the CentOS Stream repositories. Source code for other release branches remains available to customers in the form of unmodified build artifacts.
Variants
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server subscription is available at no cost for development purposes. Developers need to register for the Red Hat Developer Program and agree to its license terms. The free developer subscription was announced on March 31, 2016, and updated in January 2021 with less restrictive terms.
There are also "Academic" editions of the Desktop and Server variants. They are offered to schools and students, are less expensive, and are provided with Red Hat technical support as an optional extra. Web support based on the number of customer contacts can be purchased separately.
It is often assumed the branding ES, AS, and WS stand for "Entry-level Server", "Advanced Server" and "Work Station", respectively.
In Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 there are new editions that substitute former Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS/ES/WS/Desktop:
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux Advanced Platform (former AS)
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux (former ES) (limited to two CPUs)
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop with Workstation and Multi-OS option
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop with Workstation option (former WS)
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop with Multi-OS option
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop (former Desktop)
Red Hat had also announced its Red Hat Global Desktop Linux edition "for emerging markets".
RHEL 4, 3, and prior releases had four variants:
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS for mission-critical/enterprise computer systems.
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES for supported network servers
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS for technical power user enterprise desktops for high-performance computing
- Red Hat Desktop for multiple deployments of single-user desktops for enterprises.
Relationship with Fedora Linux
The Fedora Project provides the following explanation:
<blockquote>Fedora is a free distribution and community project and upstream for Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Fedora is a general purpose system that gives Red Hat and the rest of its contributor community the chance to innovate rapidly with new technologies. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is a commercial enterprise operating system and has its own set of test phases including alpha and beta releases which are separate and distinct from Fedora development.</blockquote>Originally, Red Hat sold boxed versions of Red Hat Linux directly to consumers and business through phone support. The Fedora Project began in 2002 as a set of community supported packages for Red Hat Linux. However, the six month release cycle of Red Hat Linux was too disruptive for business users and Red Hat wanted a more reliable revenue stream. In 2002 Red Hat began releasing Red Hat Enterprise Linux based on Red Hat Linux, but with a much more conservative release cycle and a subscription based support program. A year later, Red Hat discontinued the Red Hat Linux product line, merging it with the Fedora community packages and releasing the resulting Fedora distribution for free.
Fedora serves as the primary upstream for future major releases of RHEL: RHEL source code repositories are forked off the Fedora repository, and released after a substantial stabilization and quality assurance effort. The major-version stable release branch is built and released by the CentOS project under the name CentOS Stream. Each minor version of RHEL is a branch of CentOS Stream that gets ongoing bug fixes and security updates.
For example, CentOS Stream 9 was forked from Fedora in March, 2021 (shortly before the Fedora 34 release) and available on public mirrors in September, 2021. RHEL 9.0 was released in May, 2022.
The Fedora Project lists the following lineages for older Red Hat Enterprise releases:
- Fedora 34 to CentOS Stream 9 to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9
- Fedora 40 to CentOS Stream 10 to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10
In addition, the Fedora project publishes a set of packages for RHEL called the Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux (EPEL). EPEL packages can be expected to work in RHEL, but it is up to willing community members to maintain the packages and back port any upstream changes. As such, packages "may come and go" during the ten-year lifespan of the RHEL release and Red Hat support plans do not include resolving issues caused by EPEL packages.
Derivatives
Red Hat Enterprise Linux is derived from free and open source software. Until 2015, Red Hat made the source code to its enterprise distribution publicly available through its FTP website, though the inclusion of Red Hat trademarks prevented direct redistribution of the software. In 2015, Red Hat began publishing de-branded source code via git repositories on git.centos.org. Several groups used the source code to compile their own derivatives, typically with changes including the removal of any references to Red Hat's trademarks and pointing the update systems to non-Red Hat servers. Groups which have undertaken this include AlmaLinux, CentOS, MIRACLE LINUX, Oracle Linux, CloudLinux OS, Rocky Linux, Scientific Linux, StartCom Enterprise Linux, Pie Box Enterprise Linux, X/OS, Lineox, and Bull's XBAS for high-performance computing.
In 2023, Red Hat replaced the process that published code to git.centos.org in favor of the CentOS Stream git repositories. As required by its open-source licenses, the code for branched releases remains available to customers and developers, but the customer contract allows Red Hat to drop any customer who provides third-parties with access to subscription services, discouraging them from publishing source code artifacts. This led to AlmaLinux, one of the RHEL derivative Linux distributions, moving away from "1:1 bug for bug" compatibility to "application binary interface (ABI) compatible", while Oracle, SUSE, and CIQ (the company behind Rocky Linux) collaborated to form the Open Enterprise Linux Association (OpenELA) in order to provide "open and free Enterprise Linux (EL) source code".
Derivatives of Red Hat Enterprise Linux are free but do not get any commercial support or consulting services from Red Hat and lack software, hardware or security certifications from Red Hat. They also do not get access to Red Hat services like Red Hat Network.
Unusually, Red Hat took steps to obfuscate their changes to the Linux kernel for RHEL 6.0 by not publicly providing the patch files for their changes in the source tarball, and only releasing the finished product in source form. Speculation suggested that the move was made to affect Oracle's competing rebuild and support services, which further modifies the distribution. This practice however, still complies with the GNU GPL since source code is defined as "[the] preferred form of the work for making modifications to it", and the distribution still complies with this definition. Red Hat's CTO Brian Stevens later confirmed the change, stating that certain information (such as patch information) would now only be provided to paying customers to make the Red Hat product more competitive against the growing number of companies offering support for products based on RHEL. CentOS developers had no objections to the change since they do not make any changes to the kernel beyond what is provided by Red Hat. Their competitor Oracle announced in November 2012 that they were releasing a RedPatch service, which allows public view of the RHEL kernel changes, broken down by patch.
Related products and add-ons
A number of commercial vendors use Red Hat Enterprise Linux as a base for the operating system in their products. Two of the best known are the Console Operating System in VMware ESX Server and Oracle Linux.
Version history and timeline
Source:
Naming convention
Each release is given a codename which is selected by a vote of the developers. The codenames don't have a specific pattern (unlike Ubuntu or Debian).
RHEL 10
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 beta was made available in December 2024.
RHEL 10 was officially announced on , at the Red Hat Summit, and uses Linux kernel 6.12.0-55.9.1.el10_0. This release has the codename Coughlan.
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10.0, , uses Linux kernel 6.12.0-55.9.1.el10_0
- 10.1,
- kernel 6.12.0-124.8.1.el10_1
- 10.2,
- kernel 6.12.0-211.16.1.el10_2
RHEL 9
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 was announced at Red Hat Summit on May 10, 2022, and was officially released on . In this version of the system introduced a Linux Kernel 5.14.0 and Gnome 40.
RHEL 9 was the first to be based on CentOS Stream, itself based on Fedora Linux, while historically RHEL was based directly on Fedora Linux.
The first beta for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 (Plow), based on Fedora Linux 34, was released on November 3, 2021.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 (Plow) was released on May 18, 2022. The name Plow was the Appalachian Trail nickname for Tim Burke, one of the founders of RHEL and retired leader of RHEL engineering.
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.0, , uses Linux kernel 5.14.0-70.13.1.el9_0
- 9.1,
- kernel 5.14.0-162.6.1.el9_1
- 9.2,
- kernel 5.14.0-284.11.1.el9_2
- 9.3,
- kernel 5.14.0-362.8.1.el9_3
- 9.4,
- kernel 5.14.0-427.13.1.el9_4
- 9.5,
- kernel 5.14.0-503.11.1.el9_5
- 9.6,
- kernel 5.14.0-570.17.1.0.1.el9_6
- 9.7,
- kernel 5.14.0-611.5.1.el9_7
- 9.8,
- kernel 5.14.0-687.10.1.el9_8
RHEL 8
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 (Ootpa) is based on Fedora 28, upstream Linux kernel 4.18, GCC 8.2, glibc 2.28, systemd 239, GNOME 3.28, and the switch to Wayland. The first beta was announced on November 14, 2018. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 was officially released on .
With Release 8 of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, IBM has completed transition of POWER8 and POWER9 servers to
little-endian mode.
The name Ootpa was a tribute to Larry Troan. His son, Eric Troan was Red Hat's first head engineer and his username was ewt, so his father was given the name ewt's pa, pronounced Ootpa.
- GNOME rebased to 3.32
- 8.2,
- kernel 4.18.0-193
- 8.3,
- kernel 4.18.0-240
- 8.4,
- kernel 4.18.0-305
- 8.5,
- kernel 4.18.0-348
- 8.6,
- kernel 4.18.0-372.9.1
- 8.7,
- kernel 4.18.0-425.3.1
- 8.8,
- kernel 4.18.0-477.10.1.el8_8
- 8.9,
- kernel 4.18.0-513.5.1.el8_9
- 8.10,
- kernel 4.18.0-553.el8_10
RHEL 7
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 (Maipo) is based on Fedora 18 and Fedora 19, upstream Linux kernel 3.10, systemd 208 (updated to 219 in RHEL 7.2), and GNOME 3.8 (rebased to GNOME 3.28 in RHEL 7.6) The first beta was announced on 11 December 2013, and a release candidate was made available on 15 April 2014. On Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 was officially released.
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.0 (Maipo), , uses Linux kernel 3.10.0-123
- 7.1,
- kernel 3.10.0-229
- 7.2,
- kernel 3.10.0-327
- systemd updated to 219
- Fedora rebased to 21
- GNOME rebased to 3.14
- 7.3,
- kernel 3.10.0-514
- 7.4,
- kernel 3.10.0-693
- Fedora rebased to 25
- GNOME rebased to 3.22
- 7.5,
- kernel 3.10.0-862
- Fedora rebased to 27
- GNOME rebased to 3.26
- 7.6,
- kernel 3.10.0-957
- Fedora rebased to 28
- GNOME rebased to 3.28
- 7.7,
- kernel 3.10.0-1062
- GNOME remains as 3.28
- 7.8,
- kernel 3.10.0-1127
- GNOME remains as 3.28
- 7.9,
- kernel 3.10.0-1160
- 7, Extended Life-cycle Support (ELS) Start Date
- aka added ELS entitlement until ELS end Date
RHEL 6
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 was forked from Fedora 10 and contains many backported features from Fedora 11 and Fedora 12.
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 (Santiago), , uses Linux kernel 2.6.32-71
- 6.1, (kernel 2.6.32-131.0.15)
- 6.2, (kernel 2.6.32-220)
- 6.3, (kernel 2.6.32-279)
- 6.4, (kernel 2.6.32-358)
- 6.5, (kernel 2.6.32-431)
- 6.6, (kernel 2.6.32-504)
- 6.7, (kernel 2.6.32-573)
- 6.8, (kernel 2.6.32-642)
- 6.9, (kernel 2.6.32-696)
- 6.10, (kernel 2.6.32-754)
- 6 ELS +, Extended Life-cycle Support (ELS) Start Date
- aka added ELS entitlement until ELS end Date
RHEL 5
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 has forked with Fedora Core 6.
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 (Tikanga), , uses Linux kernel 2.6.18-8
- 5.1, (kernel 2.6.18-53)
- 5.2, (kernel 2.6.18-92)
- 5.3, (kernel 2.6.18-128)
- 5.4, (kernel 2.6.18-164)
- 5.5, (kernel 2.6.18-194)
- 5.6, (kernel 2.6.18-238)
- 5.7, (kernel 2.6.18-274)
- 5.8, (kernel 2.6.18-308)
- 5.9, (kernel 2.6.18-348)
- 5.10, (kernel 2.6.18-371)
- 5.11, (kernel 2.6.18-398)
- 5.11+, Extended Life-cycle Support (ELS) Start Date
- aka added ELS entitlement until ELS end Date
RHEL 4
RHEL 4 introduced Linux kernel 2.6 versions and extended attributes on ext2 and ext3 file systems.
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 (Nahant), , uses Linux kernel 2.6.9-5
- Update 1, (kernel 2.6.9-11)
- Update 2, (kernel 2.6.9-22)
- Update 3, (kernel 2.6.9-34)
- Update 4, (kernel 2.6.9-42)
- Update 5, (kernel 2.6.9-55)
- Update 6, (kernel 2.6.9-67)
- Update 7, (kernel 2.6.9-78)
- Update 8, (kernel 2.6.9-89)
- Update 9, (kernel 2.6.9-100)
RHEL 3
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 (Taroon), , uses Linux kernel 2.4.21-4
- Update 1, (kernel 2.4.21-9)
- Update 2, (kernel 2.4.21-15)
- Update 3, (kernel 2.4.21-20)
- Update 4, (kernel 2.4.21-27)
- Update 5, (kernel 2.4.21-32)
- Update 6, (kernel 2.4.21-37)
- Update 7, (kernel 2.4.21-40)
- Update 8, (kernel 2.4.21-47)
- Update 9, (kernel 2.4.21-50)
RHEL 2.1
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 2.1 AS (Pensacola), , uses Linux kernel 2.4.9-e.3
- Update 1, (kernel 2.4.9-e.12)
- Update 2, (kernel 2.4.9-e.24)
- Update 3, (kernel 2.4.9-e.34)
- Update 4, (kernel 2.4.9-e.40)
- Update 5, (kernel 2.4.9-e.49)
- Update 6, (kernel 2.4.9-e.57)
- Update 7,
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 2.1 ES (Panama), May 2003
Product life cycle
The life cycle of Red Hat Enterprise Linux is at least seven years for versions 3 and 4, and spans at least 10 years for versions 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9. The life cycle comprises several phases of varying length with different degrees of support. During the first phase ("Production 1"), Red Hat provides full support and updates software and hardware drivers. In later phases ("Production 2" and "Production 3"), only security and other important fixes are provided and support for new hardware is gradually reduced.
In the last years of the support lifecycle (after seven years for version 4 and earlier, and after 10 years for version 5 and later), critical and security-related fixes are only provided to customers who pay an additional subscription ("Extended Lifecycle Support Add-On"), which is available until the End of Extended Lifecycle Support date for each version as shown in the table below. This covers a limited number of packages. Red Hat only supports major version upgrades from version n to version n+1.
<!-- Template:Version - for version & release history. Documentation & examples: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Version -->
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! RHEL<br />version !! Last minor<br />release !! Release date !! End of Full Support !! End of Maintenance<br />Support 1 (RHEL 5, 6, 7) !! End of <br /> Maintenance Support (RHEL 8, 9, 10), <br /> Maintenance Support 2 (RHEL 5, 6, 7) <br /> (product retirement) !! End of Extended<br />Lifecycle Support
|-
|
| U-7
| 26 March 2002 (AS)<br /> 1 May 2003 (ES)
| 30 November 2004
| 31 May 2005
| 31 May 2009
|
|-
|
| U-9
| 23 October 2003
| 20 July 2006
| 30 June 2007
| 31 October 2010
| 30 January 2014
|-
|
| U-9
| 14 February 2005
| 31 March 2009
| 16 February 2011
| 29 February 2012
| 31 March 2017
|-
|
| 5.11
| 15 March 2007
| 8 January 2013
| 31 January 2014
| 31 March 2017
| 30 November 2020
|-
|
| 6.10
| 10 November 2010
| 10 May 2016
| 10 May 2017
| 30 November 2020
| 30 June 2024
|-
|
| 7.9
| 10 June 2014
| 6 August 2019
| 6 August 2020
| 30 June 2024
| 31 May 2029
|-
|
| 8.10
| 7 May 2019
| May 2024
|
| May 2029
| 31 May 2031
|-
|
| 9.8
| 08 Nov 2022
| May 2027
|
| May 2032
| 31 May 2034 Consequently, RHEL may use a Linux kernel with a dated version number, yet the kernel is up-to-date regarding not only security fixes, but also certain features. One specific example is the socket option which was added to Linux kernel 3.9, and was subsequently backported and became available since RHEL 6.5, which uses version 2.6.32 of the Linux kernel.
Extended Update Support (EUS) / Z Tree
The Extended Update Support (EUS) allows an organization / company to choose when they change to a new minor version. For the first 6 months of the EUS channel / yum repo, features may be added, but then the channel is locked down so that only bug and security fixes are patched. The organization / company then has 24 months to move to a new EUS branch. EUS allows the organization / company to stay on a minor version if required by a third-party application which is only tested with a particular minor version of RHEL, such as Oracle Database, IBM Db2, IBM Cloud Orchestrator, Hortonworks. There may also be extra costs associated with using the EUS repos/channels depending on the agreement the organization / company has with Red Hat. For more information on what is Included/Excluded from the EUS see. As such, projects clearly state to ensure users run on the latest available minor version within a supported major release.
Updates
In general one can move from z streams to the next version of the z stream.
- The 7.4.z EUS channel after the release of 7.4.
- The 7.5.z EUS channel after the release of 7.5.
Any 7.y.z EUS channel where y is greater than 1.
The standard base channel for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7, which is the most recent minor release aka rhel 7Y where y is the latest greatest.
One can not go back in time, aka 7.5.z to 7.4.z and will NOT be supported.
- 7.4, also termed Update 4, (kernel 3.10.0-693)
- 1st Day of EUS Window
- Last Day of EUS Window
- 7.7, also termed Update 7, (kernel 3.10.0-1062)
- Released on
- 7.9, also termed Update 9 is the final RHEL 7 release
- Released on
RHEL 8
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 (Ootpa) is based on Fedora 28, upstream Linux kernel 4.18, systemd 239, and GNOME 3.28. The first beta was announced on November 14, 2018.
- 8.0 - 6 Month Minor Release (kernel 4.18.0-80)
- 1st Day of Support Window Each application stream will be supported from two to five years with new versions only available during the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Full Support Phase. These apps should be expected to be updated frequently with shorter lifecycles than the base OS packages.
Packages currently offered as streams